FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
REV.   LOUIS    FITZGERALD    BENSON,  D.  D. 

BEQUEATHED   BY  HIM  TO 

THE   LIBRARY  OF 

PRINCETON  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


Sectiwi      lOllaZ 


K  APR  23  1932  '' 
THE 

WESTMINSTER  ASSEMBLY 

ITS    HISTORY  AND    STANDARDS 


BEING 

Eljc  13airti  Hecture  for  1882 

ALEXANDER  F.  MITCHELL,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

.lERITUS    PROFESSOR    OF    ECCLESIASTICAL    HISTORY,    ST.    MARY's    COLLEGE,    ST. 
ANDREWS;  JOINT  EDITOR  OF    "  MINUTES  OF  THE  WESTMINSTER    ASSEMBLY," 
"    MINUTES    OF   THE    COMMISSION    OF    THE   GENERAL  ASSEMBLY,"  ETC. 

SECOND  EDITION,  REVISED  BY  THE  AUTHOR 


PHILADELPHIA 

PRESBYTERIAN    BOARD    OF    PUBLICATION 

AND  SABBATH-SCHOOL   WORK 

1897 


Copyright,   1897, 


Trustees  Presbyterian  Board  of  Publication 
AND  Sabbath-School  Work 


PREFACE  TO  SECOND  EDITION. 

A  FEW  years  ago,  when  the  Free  Church  in 
Scotland  was  occupied  in  discussing  the  terms 
of  subscription  to  the  Confession  of  Faith  and 
in  adjusting  a  Declaratory  Act  thereanent,  I  was 
asked  by  several  of  its  ministers  to  republish 
these  Lectures  on  the  Westminster  Assembly  and 
the  Westminster  Standards,  which  even  then  were 
nearly  out  of  print.  But  circumstances  at  the 
time  prevented  me  from  complying  with  their 
request.  Having  recently  learned  that  no  more 
copies  remain  for  sale,  and  that  there  is  still  a 
demand  for  the  book  among  my  brethren  in 
the  large  Presbyterian  Churches  in  America, 
I  have  had  much  pleasure  in  complying  with 
the  request  made  by  the  Presbyterian  Board  of 
Publication  that  I  would  allow  them  to  republish 
the  Lectures ;  and,  so  far  as  possible  in  the  time 
at  my  disposal,  I  have  done  my  best  to  make 
them  more  worthy  of  the  acceptance  of  my  "  kin 
beyond  the  sea." 


PREFATORY    NOTE 
TO    THE     FIRST    EDITION. 

When  appointed  Baird  Lecturer  for  1882,  the 
Author  chose  as  the  subject  of  his  Lectures, 
"  Epochs  in  the  History  of  the  Reformed  Church 
of  Scotland."  But  the  state  of  his  health  during 
1 88 1,  and  his  desire  to  complete  without  delay 
his  researches  on  the  Westminster  Assembly — 
a  subject  which  had  engaged  his  attention  for 
some  years,  and  on  which  he  had  previously 
given  lectures  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic — led 
him  to  ask  that  he  might  be  allowed  to  substi- 
tute that  subject  for  the  one  first  chosen,  and 
to  write  additional  lectures  on  it.  To  this  the 
Trustees  most  kindly  consented,  and  seven  addi- 
tional lectures  were  prepared,  which  with  those 
previously  written  make  up  the  present  volume. 
His  best  thanks  are  due  to  the  Trustees,  as  well 
for  the  indulgence  they  have  shown  him  as  for 
the  kind  aid  they  have  promised  to  help  forward 
the  publication  of  the  remainder  of  the  Minutes 
of  the  Westminster  Assembly.  His  thanks  are 
also  due  to  old  friends  at  Cambridge,  Oxford, 
and  the  British    Museum  for   much    kind  aid   in 


vlii     Pj^efatory  Note  to  the  First  Edition, 

the  prosecution  of  his  researches,  as  well  as  to 
a  young  friend  in  St.  Andrews  for  revising  the 
proof-sheets  of  this  volume. 

In  the  first  three  lectures  the  author  has  given 
a  succinct  account  of  English  Puritanism  from 
its  origin  to  the  meeting  of  the  Westminster 
Assembly,  and  in  the  tenth  lecture  he  has  given 
a  similar  account  of  the  history  of  doctrine  in  the 
British  Churches  during  the  same  period.  But 
throughout  he  has  endeavored  to  give  prominence 
to  aspects  of  the  history  which  have  hitherto  been 
generally  overlooked,  and  to  treat  more  briefly 
of  those  which  have  been  previously  dwelt  on. 
It  goes  without  saying  that  while  thankfully  own- 
ing the  good  that  has  been  done  by  the  great  men 
of  other  schools,  he  has  strong  sympathies  with 
the  worthies  of  the  Puritan  or  Low  Church  School, 
which  in  the  i6th  and  17th  centuries  did  so  much 
for  the  revival  of  earnest  religious  life  and  the 
maintenance  of  evangelical  doctrine,  and  which, 
notwithstanding  later  reverses,  has  continued  to 
exercise  a  benign  influence  and  to  permeate  with 
"its  own  seriousness  and  purity"  English  society, 
literature,  and  politics.^ 

^  The  liistory  of  English  progress  since  tlie  Restoration,  on  its 
moral  and  spiritual  sides,  has  been  the  history  of  Puritanism." — 
Green. 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Ordinance  calling  the  Westminster  Assembly  .    .    .     xiii 

LECTURE   I. 

Origin  of  Puritanism,  its  Development  and  History 

under  the  earlier  tudor  sovereigns i 

LECTURE    n. 
Development    and    History    of    Puritanism    under 

Queen  Elizabeth 32 

LECTURE    HL 
History  of  Puritanism   under   the   earlier   Stuart 

Kings 62 

LECTURE   IV. 
Preparations  for  and  summoning  of  the  Westminster 

Assembly 99 

LECTURE   V. 

Opening  of  the  Assembly;  its  Proceedings  and 
Debates  while  engaged  in  revising  the  ihirty- 
NiNE  Articles,  and  the  Solemn  Lea(;ue  and 
Covenant 132 


X  Contents. 

LECTURE   VI. 

PAGE 

Arrival  of  the  Scottish  Commissioners,  Taking  of 
THE  Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  Consequent 
Extension  of  the  Commission  of  the  Assembly, 
Debates  on  the  Office-bearers  and  Courts  of 
THE  Church 174 


LECTURE  VIL 

The  Directory  for  the  Public  Worship  of  God,  and 
Proceedings  of  the  Assembly   and   Parliament 

THEREUPON 219 


LECTURE    VIIL 

Treatises  on  Church  Government,  Church  Censures, 

AND  Ordination  of  Ministers 254 


LECTURE   IX. 

Debates  on  the  Autonomy  of  the  Church,  the  sole 
supremacy  of  its  Divine  Head,  and  the  right 
OF  its  Office-bearers  under  Him  to  guard  its 
Purity  and  administer  its  Discipline:  Queries 
ON  jus  divinum  OF  Church  Government    ....    278 


LECTURE   X. 

The  Assembly's  Confession  of  Faith  or  Articles  of 
Christian  Religion  :  Part  L  Introductory  His- 
tory of  Doctrine,  and  detailed  account  of  the 
preparation  of  the  Confession 335 


Co7ttcnts,  xi 

LECTURE   XI. 


PAGE 


The  Assembly's  Confession  of  Faith  or  Articles 
OF  Christian  Religion:  Part  II.  Irs  Sources 
AND  Type  of  Doctrine:  Answers  to  objections 
brought  against  it 380 


LECTURE   XII. 

The  Assembly's  Catechisms,  Larger  and  Shorter  .    .  418 

LECTURE   XIII. 

Conclusion  and  Results  of  the  Assembly 442 

APPENDIX. 

Note  A,  Puritans  and  Puritanism 495 

Note  B,  Travers  AND  Hooker 497 

Note  C,  Millenary  Petition  and  Conference  on  it    .  499 

Note  D,  The  Pilgrim  Fathers 501 

Note  E,  Laud  and  the  Scots 502 

Note  F,  The  Irish  Massacres ^  503 

Note  Addiitonal,  Description  of  Assembly 504 

Note  G,  Presbyter  Theory  of  Eldership 505 

Note  H,  Power  of  Magistrate  circa  sacra 508 

Note  I,  Liberty  of  Conscience  and  Toleration    .    .    .  509 

Note  K,  Acts  of  Assembly,  1645  and  1647 514 

Note  M  (i),  Calvin  and  the  English  Reformers  ...  515 

Note  M  (2),  Edwardian  Articles  on  Sacraments  ...  521 

Note  Additional,  Verses  on  Members  of  Assembly     .  523 

Note  N,  Ball  on  the  Covenants 5^4 

Note  Additional,  Milton's  Relation  to  Calvinism    .  525 

«  "  Early  Editions  of  THE  Confession  .  526 

«  "  Subscription  of  the  Confession  .    .  529 


An  Ordinance  of  the  Lords  and  Commons  assonbled  i7t 
Parliament,  for  the  calling  of  an  Assembly  of  learned 
and  godly  Divines,  and  others,  to  be  co7isulted7vith  by  the 
Parliamefit,  for  the  settling  of  the  Government  and 
Liturgy  of  the  Church  of  Eiigland,  and  for  vindicating 
and  clearing  of  the  doctrine  of  the  said  Church  from  false 
aspe?'sions  a7id  ijiterpre  tat  ions  (Passed  June  12,  1643). 

Whereas,  amongst  the  infinite  blessings  of  Almighty 
God  upon  this  nation,  none  is  or  can  be  more  dear  unto 
us  than  the  purity  of  our  religion  ;  and  for  that,  as  yet,  many 
things  remain  in  the  Liturgy,  Discipline,  and  Government  of 
the  Church,  which  do  necessarily  require  a  further  and  more 
perfect  reformation  than  as  yet  hath  been  attained  ;  and 
whereas  it  hath  been  declared  and  resolved  by  the  Lords  and 
Commons  assembled  in  Parliament,  that  the  present  Church- 
government  by  archbishops,  bishops,  their  chancellors,  com- 
missaries, deans,  deans  and  chapters,  archdeacons,  and  other 
ecclesiastical  officers  depending  upon  the  hierarchy,  is  evil, 
and  justly  offensive  and  burdensome  to  the  kingdom,  a  great 
impediment  to  reformation  and  growth  of  religion,  and  very 
prejudicial  to  the  state  and  government  of  this  kingdom; 
and  that  therefore  they  are  resolved  that  the  same  shall  be 
taken  away,  and  that  such  a  government  shall  be  settled  in 
the  Church  as  may  be  most  agreeable  to  God's  holy  word, 
and  most  apt  to  procure  and  preserve  the  peace  of  the 
Church  at  home,  and  nearer  agreement  with  the  Church  of 
Scotland,  and  other  Reformed  Churches  abroad ;  and,  for 
the  better  effecting  hereof  and  for  the  vindicating  and 
clearing  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  England  from  all 
false  calumnies  and  aspersions,  it  is  thought  fit  and  necessary 
to  call  an  Assembly  of  learned,  godly,  and  judicious  Divines, 
who,  together  with  some  members  of  both  the  Houses  of 
Parliament,  are  to  consult  and  advise  of  such  matters  and 
things,  touching  the  premises,  as  shall  be  proposed  unto 
them  by  both  or  either  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  and  to 


XIV  Ordinance  of  Parliamefzi 

give  their  advice  and  counsel  therein  to  both  or  either  of 
the  said  Houses,  when,  and  as  often  as  they  shall  be  there- 
unto required  :  Be  it  therefore  ordained,  by  the  Lords  and 
Commons  in  this  present  Parliament  assembled,  That  all 
and  every  the  persons  hereafter  in  this  present  Ordinance 
named,  that  is  to  say, — [Here  are  inserted  the  7iames  of  the 
members,  which  are  given  on  p.  xvi.  et  seq?^ 

And  such  other  person  and  persons  as  shall  be  nominated 
and  appointed  by  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  or  so  many 
of  them  as  shall  not  be  letted  by  sickness,  or  other  necessary 
impediment,  shall  meet  and  assemble,  and  are  hereby 
required  and  enjoined,  upon  summons  signed  by  the  clerks 
of  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  left  at  their  several  respective 
dwellings,  to  meet  and  assemble  themselves  at  Westminster, 
in  the  Chapel  called  King  Henry  the  VII. 's  Chapel,  on  the 
first  day  of  July,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  One  thousand  six 
hundred  and  forty-three ;  and  after  the  first  meeting,  being 
at  least  of  the  number  of  forty,  shall  from  time  to  time  sit, 
and  be  removed  from  place  to  place  ;  and  also  that  the  said 
Assembly  shall  be  dissolved  in  such  manner  as  by  both 
Houses  of  Parliament  shall  be  directed :  and  the  said 
persons,  or  so  many  of  them  as  shall  be  so  assembled  or 
sit,  shall  have  power  and  authority,  and  are  hereby  likewise 
enjoined,  from  time  to  time  during  this  present  Parliament, 
or  until  further  order  be  taken  by  both  the  said  Houses,  to 
confer  and  treat  among  themselves  of  such  matters  and 
things,  touching  and  concerning  the  Liturgy,  Discipline,  and 
Government  of  the  Church  of  England,  or  the  vindicating 
and  clearing  of  the  doctrine  of  the  same  from  all  false 
aspersions  and  misconstructions,  as  shall  be  proposed  unto 
them  by  both  or  either  of  the  said  Houses  of  Parliament, 
and  no  other ;  and  to  deliver  their  opinions  and  advices  of, 
or  touching  the  matters  aforesaid,  as  shall  be  most  agreeable 
to  the  word  of  God,  to  both  or  either  of  the  said  Houses, 
from  time  to  time,  in  such  manner  and  sort  as  by  both  or 
either  of  the  said  Houses  of  Parliament  shall  be  required ; 
and  the  same  not  to  divulge,  by  printing,  writing,  or  other- 
wise, without  the  consent  of  both  or  either  House  of 
Parliament.  And  be  it  further  ordained  by  the  authority 
aforesaid,  That  William  Twisse,  Doctor  in  Divinity,  shall 


calling  Westminster  Assembly.         xv 

sit  in  the  chair,  as  Prolocutor  of  the  said  Assembly  ;  and  if 
he  happen  to  die,  or  be  letted  by  sickness,  or  other  necessary 
impediment,  then  such  other  person  to  be  appointed  in  his 
place  as  shall  be  agreed  on  by  both  the  said  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment :  And  in  case  any  difference  of  opinion  shall  happen 
amongst  the  said  persons  so  assembled,  touching  any  the 
matters  that  shall  be  proposed  to  them  as  aforesaid,  that 
then  they  shall  represent  the  same,  together  with  the  reasons 
thereof,  to  both  or  either  the  said  Houses  respectively,  to  the 
end  such  further  direction  may  be  given  therein  as  shall  be 
requisite  in  that  behalf.  And  be  it  further  ordained  by  the 
authority  aforesaid,  That,  for  the  charges  and  expenses  of 
the  said  Divines,  and  every  of  them,  in  attending  the  said 
service,  there  shall  be  allowed  unto  every  of  them  that  shall 
so  attend,  during  the  time  of  their  said  attendance,  and  for 
ten  days  before  and  ten  days  after,  the  sum  of  four  shillings 
for  every  day,  at  the  charges  of  the  Commonwealth,  at  such 
time,  and  in  such  manner  as  by  both  Houses  of  Parliament 
shall  be  appointed.  And  be  it  further  ordained.  That  all 
and  every  the  said  Divines,  so,  as  aforesaid,  required  and 
enjoined  to  meet  and  assemble,  shall  be  freed  and  acquitted 
of  and  from  every  offense,  forfeiture,  penalty, loss, or  damage, 
which  shall  or  may  arise  or  grow  by  reason  of  any  non- 
residence  or  absence  of  them,  or  any  of  them,  from  his  or 
their,  or  any  of  their  church,  churches,  or  cures,  for  or  in 
respect  of  their  said  attendance  upon  the  said  service ;  any 
law  or  statute  of  non-residence,  or  other  law  or  statute 
enjoining  their  attendance  upon  their  respective  ministries 
or  charges,  to  the  contrary  thereof  notwithstanding.  And 
if  any  of  the  persons  before  named  shall  happen  to  die  be- 
fore the  said  Assembly  shall  be  dissolved  by  order  of  both 
Houses  of  Parliament,  then  such  other  person  or  persons 
shall  be  nominated  and  placed  in  the  room  and  stead  of 
such  person  and  persons  so  dying,  as  by  both  the  said 
Houses  shall  be  thought  fit  and  agreed  upon  ;  and  every 
such  person  or  persons,  so  to  be  named,  shall  have  the  like 
power  and  authority,  freedom  and  acquittal,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  and  also  all  such  wages  and  allowances  for 
the  said  service,  during  the  time  of  his  or  their  attendance, 
as  to  any  other  of  the  said  persons  in  this  Ordinance  is  by 


xvi  List  of  Members  of 

this  Ordinance  limited  and  appointed.  Provided  always, 
That  this  Ordinance,  or  any  thing  therein  contained,  shall 
not  give  unto  the  persons  aforesaid,  or  any  of  them,  nor 
shall  they  in  this  Assembly  assume  to  exercise  any  juris- 
diction, power,  or  authority  ecclesiastical  whatsoever,  or  any 
other  power  than  is  herein  particularly  expressed. 


LIST  OF  MEMBERS  OF  THE  WESTMINSTER 
ASSEMBLY.^ 

In  the  order  in  which  their  names  appear  in  the  Ordinance  calling 
the  Assembly,  or  zuere  subsequently  added  by  the  two  Houses. 

PEERS. 

■^Algernon,    Earl    of    North-  I  *PhiUp,  Lord  Wharton, 
umberland.  j  *Edward,    Lord   Howard  of 

William,  Earl  of  Bedford.       1      Escrick. 

^Philip,    Earl   of   Pembroke  !  Basil,  Earl  of  Denbigh  ; 
and  Montgomery. 

^William,  Earl  of  Salisbury. 

Henry,  Earl  of  Holland. 

^Edward,  Earl  of  Manches- 
ter. 

^William,  Lord  Viscount  Say 
and  Scale. 

Edward,      Lord       Viscount 
Conway. 


Oliver,  Earl  of  Bolingbroke  ; 
William,     Lord     Grey     of 

Warke  ; 
vice  Bedford,   Holland,  and 

Conway. 
"^'Robert,  Earl  of  Essex,  Lord 

Gejicral. 
^Robert,  Earl  of  Wariaic/c, 

Lord  High  Admiral. 


^  An  asterisk  has  been  placed  before  the  name  of  every  one  who 
has  been  found  at  any  time  to  have  attended  the  meetings,  and  of 
every  one  who  is  reported  to  have  signed  the  protestation  required 
to  be  taken  by  every  member  admitted  to  sit  in  the  Assembly.  The 
names  of  members  added  subsequently  to  the  meeting  of  the  As- 
sembly are  printed  in  italics,  as  are  also  the  particulars  about  the 
original  members  which  are  not  taken  from  the  Ordinance.  For 
convenience  of  reference  I  prefix  a  number  to  the  name  of  each 
divine,  and  I  append  the  same  number  to  the  name  of  each  divine 
in  the  general  Index  to  this  volume,  after  the  Roman  numerals  in- 
dicating the  page  of  this  list  on  which  it  is  found. 


tJie  Westminster  Assembly.  xvli 


MEMBERS   OF    HOUSE   OF   COMMONS. 


^Jolin  Seidell,  Esq. 
^Francis  Rous,  Esq. 
*Edmimd  Prideaux,  Esq. 
*Sir  Henry  Vane, Knt., senior. 
*John  Glynn,  Esq.,  Recorder 

of  London. 
*John  White,  Esq. 
^Bouldstrode  Whitlocke,Esq. 
"Humphrey  Salloway,  Esq. 
Mr.  Serjeant  Wild. 
^Oliver  St.  John,   Esq.,   His 

Majesty's  Solicitor. 
■'■Sir  Benjamin  Rudyard,  Knt. 
*John  Pym,  Esq. 
*Sir  John  Clotvvorthy,  Knt. 
*John  Maynard,  Esq. 
*Sir     Henry     Vane,     Knt., 

junior. 
William  Pierpoint,  Esq. 
■^William  Wheeler,  Esq. 


*Sir     Thomas      Barrington, 

Knt. 
Walter  Young,  Esq. 
*Sir  John  Evelyn,  Knt. 
"^■/r  Robc'ft  Niifley,  v.  Pyni, 

deceased. 
*Sir     IVilliain    Massani,   or 

Mas  son,     v.     Ba^Tington, 

deceased. 
"^William  Siroud,  v.  White, 

deceased. 

"^Sir   A7'thiir\       ,,    ,     , 
rr      7  •  added  awns' 

HaselriiT,  .,;   .^     ,  *> 

Robert    Key-   j  -^ 

nolds,  Esq.  ) 

"^'Zouch  Tate,  Esq. 

'^Sir  Gilbert  Gerard  (?). 

"^ Sir  Robert  Pye{^.). 

"^Sir  John  Cooke. 

Nathaniel  Eien?ies  (?) 


DIVINES. 

1.  "^Herbert    Palmer,  B.D.,  of   Ashwell,  Herts,  Assessor 

after  White,  a7id  Master  of  Qnecfts  College,  Cam- 
bridge. 

2.  ^Oliver  Bowles,  B.D.,  of  Sutton,  Bedford. 

3.  *Henry  Wilkinson,  j<f;z.,  B.D.,  of  Waddesdon,  Bucks, 

and  St.  Dimstans  in  East. 

4.  *Thomas  Valentine,  B.D.,  of  Chalfont,  St.  Giles,  Bucks, 

aft.  of  London. 

5.  ^WiUiam  Twisse,  D.D.,  of  Newbury,  Berks,  Prolocutor. 

6.  *W^illiam  Raynor,  B.D.,  of  Egham,  Surrey,  aft.  of  St. 

John  Baptist,  London. 

7.  "Hannibal  Gammon,  M.A.,  of  Mawgan,    Corn7vall. 

8.  ^Jasper  or  Gaspar  Hickes,  M.A.,  of  Lanrake,  Cornwall. 

9.  ^Joshua  Hoyle,  D.D.,  of  Dublin,  afterwards  of  Step- 

ney, then  Regius  Professor  of  Divinity  at  Oxford. 


xviii  List  of  Members  of 

10.  ^William  Bridge,  M.A.,  of  Yarmouth. 

11.  Thomas  Wincop,  D.D.,  of  Ellesworth,  Cambridge. 

12.  *Thomas  Goodwin,  B.D.,  of  London,  aft.  of  Magdalen 

College,  Oxford. 

13.  *John  Ley,  M.A.,  of  Bud  worth,  Cheshire. 

14.  ^Thomas  Case,  M.A.,  of  St.   Alary  Magdalene,  Milk 

Street,  London. 

15.  John  Pyne,  of  Bereferrers,  Devoji. 

16.  Francis     Whidden,     M.A.,    of    M-oreion- Hampstead, 

Devon. 

17.  Richard    Love,    D.D.,    of    Ekington,    and  of    Corpus 

Christi  College,  Cambridge. 

18.  *WilHam  Gouge,  D.D.,  of  Blackfriars,  London,  Assessor 

after  Palmer. 

19.  Ralph  Brownerigg,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Exeter,  sent  excuse 

for  no?t-attenda7ice. 

20.  Samuel  Ward,  D.D,,  Master  of  Sidney  Sussex  College, 

Cambridge. 

21.  *John  White,  M.A.,  of  Dorchester,  Assessor. 

22.  ^Edward  Peale,  of  Compton,  Dorset. 

23.  ^Stephen  Marshall,  B.D.,  of  Finchingfield,  Essex. 

24.  "^Obadiah  Sedgewick,  B.D.,  of  Coggeshall,  or  of  Farn- 

ham,  Essex. 

25.  [John]  Carter,  M.A.,  of  York,  after  of  Camberwell,  or 

of  St.  Peter  s,  Norwich. 

26.  *Peter  Clerk,  M.A.,oi  Carnaby,  aftcj'wardsof  Kirkby, 

York. 
Tj.  ^William  Mew,  B.D,,  of  Easington,  Gloucester. 

28.  Richard  Capell,  M.A.,  Pitchcombe,  Gloucester. 

29.  *Theophilus   Bathurst,    or    Theodore    Backhurst,    of 

Overton  Watervile,  Wilts. 

30.  ^Philip  Nye,  M.A.,  of  Kimbolton,  Hunts. 

31.  ^Brocket  (or  Peter)  Smith,  D.D.,  of  Barkway,  Herts. 

32.  ^Cornelius  Burges,  D.D.,  of  Watford,  Herts,  Assessor, 

aft.  of  St.  Andrejus,  Wells. 

33.  *John  Green,  of  Pencombe,  He^rford. 

34.  ^Stanley  Gower,  of  Brampton   Bryan,   Hereford,  and 

St.  Martin  s,  Ludgate. 

35.  ^Francis  Taylor,  B.D.,  of  Yalding,  Ketit. 

36.  -^Thomas  Wilson,  M.A.,  of  Otham,  Ketit. 


the  Westminster  Assembly.  xlx 

37.  ^Antony  Tuckney,  B.D.,  of  Boston,  and  St.  Michael 

Quern,  aft.  Master  successively  of  Emmanuel  and 
St.  Johns,  Cambridge,  and  Professor  of  Divinity 
after  Arrow  smith. 

38.  *Thomas  Coleman,  M.A.,  of  Ely  ton,  Lincoln,  aft.  of 

St.  Peter's,  Cornhill. 

39.  *Charles  Herle,  M.A.,  of  Winwick,  Laticashire,  Prolo- 

cutor after  Dr.  Twisse. 

40.  *Richard    Herrick,    or    Heyrick,    M.A.,     Warden    of 

Christ's  College,  Manchester,  conformed  at  Restora- 
tion. 

41.  Richard    Cleyton,    M.A.,   of    Shawell,  Leicester,   aft. 

Easton  Alagna,  Essex. 

42.  ^George  Gibbs,  or  Gippes,  of  Ayleston,  Leicester. 

43.  Cahbute  Downing,  LL.D.,  of  Hackney,  Middlesex. 

44.  ^Jeremy    Burroughes,    M.A.,     '"  Morning    Star,'"    of 

Stepney. 

45.  ^Edmund  Calamy,  B.D.,  of  St.  Marys,  Aldermanbury, 

London. 

46.  ^George   Walker,    B.D.,   of  St.     John's    Evangelist, 

IVatling  Street,  London. 

47.  ^Joseph  Carrill,  y[.\.,  Preacher  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  aft. 

of  St.  Magnus,  London. 

48.  *Lazarus    Seaman,    B.D.,    of    All    Hallows,    Bread 

Street,  Loftdon,  afterwards  of  Peter  House,  Cam- 
bridge. 

49.  *John   Harris,  D.D.,  Warden  of  Winchester  College, 

"  took  Covenant  and  other  oaths,"  but  retired. 

50.  George  Morley,  Z>.Z>.,  of  Mildenhall,  Wilts,  aft.  Bishop 

of  Winchester. 

51.  ^Edward  Reynolds,  M.A.,  of  Braunston,  Northampton, 

aft.  D.D.,  Dean  of  Christ  Church,  Oxf,  and  Bishop 
of  Norwich. 

52.  *Thomas    Hill,    B.D.,   of   Titchmarsh,    Northampton, 

aft.  D.D.  and  Master  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 

53.  Robert    Sanderson,    D.D.,    of    Boothby    Pannell     or 

Pagnell,  Lincoln,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Lincoln. 

54.  *John  Foxcroft,  M.A.,  of  Gotham,  Notts. 

55.  *John    Jackson,    M.A.,   of    Marske,     Yorkshire,   also 

preacher  at  Gray  s  Lnn. 


XX  List  of  Monbcrs  of 

56.  ^William  Carter,  of  London. 

57.  *Thomas  Thoroughgood,  of  Massingham,  Norfolk. 

58.  *John  Arrowsmith,  B.D.,  of  King's  Lynne,   Norfolk, 

afterwards  Master  successively  of  St.  JoJui  s  and 
Trinity,  Canibridife,  and  Professor  of  Divinity. 

59.  ^Robert   Harris,   B.D.,   of   Hanwell,    Oxford,  aft.  of 

Tritiity  College  there. 

60.  ^Robert  Crosse,  B.D.,  of  Lincoln  College,  Oxford. 

61.  James  [Ussher],  Archbishop  of  Armagh. 

62.  *Matthias   Styles,   D.D.,   of   St.    George's,  Eastcheap, 

London. 

63.  ^Samuel  Gibson,  of  Burleigh,  Rutland. 

64.  *Jeremiah  Whitaker,  M.A.,  of  Stretton,  Rutland,  after- 

wards of  Bennondsey. 

65.  *Edmund    Stanton,    D.D.,     of    Kingston-on-Thames, 

aft.  President  of  Coi'pus  Christi  College,  Oxford. 

66.  *Daniel  Featley,  D.D.,  of  Lambeth,  "  Third  and  last 

Pnn'ost  of  Chelsea  College.'' 

67.  Francis  Coke,  or  Cooke,  of  Yoxhall,  Staffordshire. 

68.  *John  Lightfoot,  AI.A.,  of  Ashley,  Staffordshire,  after 

D.D.  and  Master  of  Catherine  Hall,  Cambridge. 

69.  ^Edward  Corbet,   M.A.,  of   Merton   College,    Oxford, 

and  Rector  of  Charthani^  Kent,  succeeded  Dr. 
Plamniond  as  University  Orator  and  Canon  of 
Christs  Church,   Oxon. 

70.  Samuel    Hildersham,   B.D.,   of    West  Felton,  Shrop- 

shire. 

71.  *John  Langley,  M.A.,  of  West  Tuderley,  or    7ytherley, 

Hampshire. 

72.  ^Christopher   Tisdale,  or  Tesdale,  M.A.,  of  Uphurst- 

borne,  or  Hurstborne,    Tarrant,  Hampshire. 

73.  ^Thomas    Young,    M.A.,   St.    And.,   of   Stowmarket, 

Siffolk,  aft.  D.D.,  and  Master  of  fesus  College, 
Cambridge . 

74.  *John  Phillips,  of  Wrentham,  Suffolk,  brother-in-law 

of  Dr.  Ames. 

75.  -^Humphrey  Chambers,  B.D.,  of  Claverton,  Somerset, 

aft.  of  Pewsey,  Wilts. 

76.  *John   Conant,  B.D.,  of  Lymington,  Somerset,  aft.  of 

St.  Stephen  s,   Walbrook. 


the  Westminster  Assembly.  xxi 

']'].  •><  Henry  Hall,  D.D.,  of  Norwich. 

78.  Henry  Hutton,  M.A.,  of  Caldbcck,  Cumberland,  and 

Prebendary  of  Carlisle. 

79.  *Henry  Scudder,  of  Collingborne,  Wilts. 

80.  -Thomas  Bayhe,  ^5./?.,  of  Manningford-Bruce,  Wilts. 

81.  '•Benjamin  Pickering,  of  East  Hoateley,  or  of  Bnck- 

stead,  Sussex. 

82.  Henry  Nye,  of  Clapham. 

83.  ^Artluir  Sallavvay,  or  Sahvay,  M.A.,  of  Seavern  Stoke, 

Worcester. 
84..  ^Sydrach  Simpson,  of  London,  afterwards  succeeded 
Vines  in  Pembroke  Hall,  Cajnbridge. 

85.  *Antony  Burgesse,  or  Purges,  M.A.,  of  Sutton   Cold- 

field,  War.,  and  St.  Lawrence,  Jezury,  London. 

86.  *RichardVines,  M^.,ofCalcot,or  Weddington  War., 

Master  of  Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge,  aft.  a  minister 
in  London. 

87.  *Winiam  Greenhill.  M.A.,'' Evening  Star,''  of  Stepney. 

88.  William  Moreton,  of  Newcastle. 

89.  Richard  Buckley,  or  Piclkley,  B.D. 

90.  *Thomas  Temple,  D.D.,  of  Battersea,  Surrey. 

91.  ^Simeon    Ashe,    of    St.    Bride's,    afterwards  of   St. 

MichacVs,  Pasingsliaw,  appointed  in  room  of  Josiah 
SJiufe,  who  died  before  Assembly  met. 

92.  William  Nicholson,  M.A.,  Archdeacon  of  Brecknock. 

93.  ^^Thomas    Gattaker,    B.D.,     of    Rotherhithe.    Surrey, 

''vir  st upend cc  lectionis  magnique  judicii.'' 

94.  *James  Weldy,  or  Welby,  of  Selattyn,  Shropshire. 

95.  Christopher  Pashley,  D.D.,  of  Hawarden.  Flintshire. 

96.  -Henry    Tozer,    B.D.,    Fellow    of  Exeter    College, 

Oxford. 

97.  "William  Spurstow,  D.D..  of  Hampden.  Bucks,  then 

of     Catharine     Hall,     Cambridge,    afterwards    of 
Hackney. 

98.  ^Francis  Cheynell,  or  Channel!,  of  Oxford,  aft.   Mas- 

ter of  St.  Johns,  D.D.,  and  Margaret  Professor  of 
Divinity. 

99.  Edward  Ellis,  B.U..  of  Guilsfield,  Montgomery. 

100.  John   Hacket,  D.D.,  of  St.  Andrew's,  Holborne,  aft. 
Bishop  of  Lichfield. 


xxii  List  of  Members  of 

loi.  *SamLiel  De  la  Place,  ]  of  French  Ch., 

1 02.  *John  De  la  March,     j         Londoji. 

103.  ■^Matthew  Newcomen,  ALA.,  of  Dedham,  Essex. 

104.  William  Lyford,  B.D.,  of  Sherborne,  Dorset. 

105.  *[Thomas]  Carter,   M.A.,  of  Dynton,  Bucks,  a/L  of 

St.  Olavc  s,  Hart  Street. 

106.  ^William  Lance,  of  Harrow,  Middlesex. 

107.  *Thomas  Hodges,   B.D.,  of  Kensington,  afterwards 

Dean  of  Hereford. 

108.  *Andreas  Perne,  M.A.,  of  Wilby,  Northampton. 

109.  *Thomas    Westfield,     D.D.,     of     St,     Bartholomew 

the    Great,    Bishop  of    Bristol,    attended    the  first 
meeting. 
no.  Henry  Hammond,   D.D.,  of   Penshurst,    Kent,    and 
Canon  of  Christ" s  Church. 

111.  *Nicholas  Prophet,  or  Proffet,  of  Marlborough,  Wilts, 

aft.  of  Edmonton. 

112.  *Peter  Sterry,  B.D.,  of  London. 

113.  John    Erie,    D.D.,    of  Bishopton,    Wilts,    afterwards 

Bishop  of  Worcester,  then  of  Salisbury. 

1 14.  *John  Gibbon,  or  Guibon,  A/.A.,  of  Waltham. 

115.  *Henry  Painter,  B.D.,  of  Exeter. 

116.  ^Thomas     Micklethwaite,    M.A.,    of    Cherry-Burton, 

Vor/cshire. 

117.  *John  Wincop,  D.D.,  of  St.   Martin's  in   the   Fields, 

and  Clothall,  Herts. 

118.  *William  Price,  B.D.,  St.  Paul's,  Covent  Garden,  and 

of  Waltham  Abbey. 

119.  Henry  Wilkinson,  jun.,  B.D.,  Epping,  Essex,  after- 

wards D.D.,  and  of  Magdalen  Hall,  Oxfoj^d. 

120.  Richard  Holdsworth,  or  Oldsworth,  D.D.,  Master  of 

Emmanuel  College,  Cambridge. 

121.  William   Dunning,    M.A.,   of  Cold  Aston,    Glouc,  or 

Godalston,  Notts. 

122.  '^Francis  Woodcock,  B.A.,  of  St.  Lawrence,  Jewry,  \. 

More  ton,  of  Neiu  castle,  deceased. 

123.  "^John  Maynard,  ALA.,  of  ALayfield,  Surrey,  v.  H. 

Nye,  deceased. 

124.  Thomas    CI  en  don,    of    All    Hallows,     Barking,     v. 

Nicholson,  who  failed  to  attend. 


the  Westminster  Assembly.       xxlii 

125.  *Dantel  Cawdt-ey,  M.A.,   St.  Marlins  in   Fir/ds,  v. 

Dr.  Harris,  of  Winchester,  excused  attending. 

126.  *  Wiliiayfi    Rathbone,  or   Rathband,  of  Hig/igate,  v. 

Morley,  who  failed  to  attend. 
127."^  John   Strickland,    of  Nezv  Saritm,   v.    Dr.    Ward, 
deceased,  14  Sept.  1643. 

1 28.  "^Williajn  Good,  B.D.,  of  Denton,  No? folk. 

129.  Jo/ui  Bond,  D.C.L.,  Master  of  the  Savoy,  v.  Arch- 

bishop    Ussher,    who,    however,    was    7'estored   in 
1647. 

130.  *IIinnphrey  Hardwick,  of  Hadhani  Magna,  Herts. 

131.  "^  fohn  Ward,  of  Ipswich  ajid  of  Brampton,  v.  Painter, 

deceased. 

132.  *  Edward  Corbet,  of  Norfolk,  or  North  Reppis,  Norfolk, 

V.  H.  Hall,  of  Norwich. 

133.  "^ Philip  Delme,  or  Delniy,  of  French  Church,  Canter- 

bury, V.  Rathbone,  deceased. 
1-^,/^..  *  Thojnas    Ford,    Af.A.,   of  St.    Faith's,    London,  v. 
Bowles,  deceased. 

135.  *  Richard    Byfield,  of  Long    Ditt07t,  Surrey,  v.  Dr. 

Featley,  deceased. 

136.  *John  Dury,  or  Durie,   v.  Dr.  Downing,   deceased, 

probably  because  of  his  well-k7iown  efforts  topjvmote 
iinion  among  Protestants. 

137.  '^William  Strong,  p?'eacher  in  Westminster  Abbey,  v. 

Peale,  deceased. 

138.  '^^ Robert  Johnston,  of  York,  v.  Carter,  deceased. 

139.  Sanmel  Boulton,  of  St.  Saviour's,  Southwaj'k,  after- 

wards D.D.,  and  Master  of  Christ's  College,  Cam- 
bridge, V.  Btcrroughes,  deceased. 

SCRIBES   OR   CLERKS   OF   THE   ASSEMBLY. 

Henry  Roborough,  of  St.  Leonard's,  Eastcheap,  Lo7idon. 
Adoniram  Byfield,  M.A.,  aftei-way-ds  of  Fulhajn. 

Ama7iue7isis  or  Assistant. 

John  Wallis,   M.A.,  Fellow  of  Ouee7is  Coll.,  Ca7n.,  afte7'- 
wa7'ds  D.D.,  Savilia7i  Professor  of  Geometry,  Oxfo7-d. 


xxlv  List  of  Members  of  the  Assembly, 

Scottish  Commissioners, 
ministers. 

Alexander     Henderson,     of    Robert     Baillie,     of     Glas- 

Edinburgh.  I      gow. 

Robert    Douglas,    of    Edinr.    George   Gillespie,    of    Edin- 

S^never  sat\.  \      burgh. 

Samuel    Rutherfurd,    of    ^X..    Robert  Blah',  of  St.  Ajidreius 

Andrews.  |      [see  p.  454 j. 


ELDERS. 


John,  Earl  of  Cassilis  \iievej' 

sat\ 
John,    Lord   Maitland,   after 

Earl  of  Lauderdale. 
Sir   Archibald   Johnston,   of 

Warriston. 
Robert  Meldruvi,  171  absentee 

of  Johnstoji. 


John,  Ea7^l  of  Loudo7i. 

Sir  Cha7-les  E7'ski7te. 

Jolm,    Lo7'd   Bali7ie7i7io,   v. 
Loud 071. 

A7-chibald,     Marquis    of 
Argyll. 

George  Wi7i7'Jia7n,  of  Libber- 
ton,  V.  Argyll. 


Admitted  to  sit  and  hear  in  October  1644,  the  Prince  Elector 
Palatine,  and  on  one  occasion  permitted  to  speak. ^ 


^  I  have  found  no  positive  evidence  that  Messrs.  C.  Love, 
Moore,  and  Nevvscore  should  be  included  among  the  superadded 
divines.  Nor,  though  I  have  allowed  Dr.  Manton's  name  to  stand 
on  p.  127,  have  I  found  evidence  that  he  should  be  included  among 
them ;  but  I  find  that  he  was  named  along  with  Calamy  and 
Marshall  in  1659-60  to  advise  with  the  Committee  of  the  House 
of  Commons  respecting  the  Confession,  and  that  he  wrote  a 
prefatory  epistle  to  it. 


N.B. — Many  of  the  quotations  from  the  "  King's  Pamphlets  "  in 
the  British  Museum  are  accompanied  by  the  press  mark  of  the 
volume  quoted,  as  E  56,  E  61,  and  often  also  the  place  of  a  par- 
ticular pamphlet  in  a  volume  is  indicated  by  a  second  number, 
as  E  85,  No.  20. 


THE    WESTMINSTER    ASSEMBLY 
ITS  HISTORY  AND  STANDARDS. 


LECTURE   I. 

ORIGIN  OF  PURITANISM,  ITS  DEVELOPMENT  AND  HISTORY 
UNDER  THE  EARLIER  TUDOR  SOVEREIGNS. 

The  Westminster  Assembly,  if  it  does  not  form 
a  landmark  in  the  history  of  our  common  Protest- 
antism, must  at  least  be  admitted  to  constitute 
an  epoch,  and  a  notable  one,  in  the  history  of  Brit- 
ish Puritanism.  There,  for  the  first  time,  its  long 
pent-up  forces  had  something  like  free  play  given 
to  them,  and  there  were  framed  those  standards, 
the  influence  of  which  in  the  development  of  Pres- 
byterianism,  both  in  the  New  World  and  in  the  Old, 
has  been  no  less  potent  than  permanent.  This 
Puritanism  was  no  mere  excrescence  on  the  fair 
form  of  the  Church  of  England,  which  might  be 
removed  without  hazard  of  marring  her  symmetry, 
or  lowering  her  vitality ;  far  less  was  it  any  fungus 

1 


2  Origin  of  Puritanism 

growth,  endangering  life  or  indicating  decay. 
Neither  was  it,  as  it  was  at  one  time  the  fashion 
to  assert,  a  mere  over-sea  fancy  which  had  taken 
captive  a  few  grateful  exiles  when  abroad,  and 
was  spread  among  not  a  few  restless  adventurers 
and  brain-sick  enthusiasts  at  home.  It  was  in 
the  English  movement  for  the  Reformation  of  the 
Mediaeval  Church  from  its  very  origin.  It  was 
the  spring  of  many  of  its  holiest  activities,  quick- 
ening earnest  thought  and  life,  sustaining  in  Chris- 
tian enterprise,  and  nerving  for  stern  self-sacrifice  ; 
and  *'  for  more  than  a  century  it  exercised  an  in- 
fluence such  as  no  other  party,  civil  or  religious, 
has  obtained  at  any  period  of  our  history."  ^  It 
finds  unmistakable  expression  in  the  writings  of 
Tyndale,  who  first  in  the  sixteenth  century  gave 
to  British  Christians  the  New  Testament  in  their 
native  tongue.  Nay,  its  root  ideas  ma}'  be  traced 
back  to  a  greater  than  Tyndale, — to  England's 
one  Reformer  before  the  Reformation,^ — the  great 
and  dauntless  Wyclif,  of  whom  it  has  been  truly 

^  Marsden's  Early  Puritans,  p.  3.     See  Appendix,  Note  A. 

-"The  former  (Puritanism)  may  be  fairly  dated  as  a  system 
from  the  days  of  Wyclif."— Thorold  Rogers  in  Princeton  Review. 
"  If  the  Reformation  of  our  Church  had  been  conducted  by  Wy- 
clif, his  work,  in  all  probability,  would  nearly  have  anticipated 
the  labors  of  Calvin ;  and  the  Protestantism  of  England  miglit 
have  pretty  closely  resembled  the  Protestantism  of  Geneva,  There 
is  a  marvelous  resemblance  between  the  Reformer  with  his  poor 
itinerant  priests  and  at  least  the  better  part  of  the  Puritans." — Le 
Bas'  Life  of  Wyclif  pp.  365,  366. 


Its  Development  and  Histo7y.  3 

said,  his  country  could  produce  no  Luther  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  simply  because  it  had  had  its 
Luther  already  in  the  fourteenth.  In  other  words, 
the  thing  is  older  than  the  name. 

The  names  Puritan  and  Precisian  are  supposed 
to  have  been  originally  nicknames,  applied  by 
way  of  reproach  to  those  they  were  used  to 
designate,  because  they  claimed  to  adhere  more 
purely  and  precisely  than  their  neighbors  to  the 
Word  of  God  as  the  only  authoritative  and  suf- 
ficient rule  in  matters  of  doctrine,  worship,  church 
polity,  and  Christian  life.  This  was  no  empty 
claim  on  their  part,  but  one  which,  notwithstand- 
ing many  shortcomings  and  much  remaining  nar- 
rowness, they  honestly  and  earnestly  endeavored 
to  make  good.  They  were  not  ashamed  of  the 
names  imposed  on  them.  They  took  them  meekly, 
and  bore  them  worthily,  and  I  trust  their  descend- 
ants will  never  feel  ashamed  either  of  the  names 
or  of  the  men  who  did  so  much  to  make  them 
honorable.  The  points  of  difference  between  the 
Puritans  and  those  who  fall  to  be  distinguished 
from  them  in  the  Reformed  Church  of  England 
seem  at  first  to  have  been  few  in  number,  and 
of  minor  importance,  partly,  perhaps,  because  the 
full  significance  of  the  principle  on  which  these 
depended  was  not  yet  clearly  apprehended  by 
themselves ;  but  much  more  because,  to  a  cer- 
tain   extent,    that    principle    was    then    accepted 


4  Origin  of  Ptiritanism 

by  almost  all  leal-hearted  supporters  of  the 
Reformation.  So  far  as  concerned  doctrine,  the 
principle  in  fact  may  be  said  to  have  been  em- 
bodied in  the  Sixth  Article  of  the  English 
Church :  "  Holy  Scripture  containeth  all  things 
necessary  to  salvation,  so  that  whatsoever  is  not 
read  therein^  nor  may  be  proved  tJiereby,  is  not  to 
be  required  of  any  man  that  it  should  be  believed 
as  an  article  of  the  faith,  or  be  thought  requisite  or 
necessary  to  salvation^  They  and  their  opponents 
at  that  time  were  at  one  as  to  the  sufficiency  and 
supremacy  of  Holy  Scripture  in  matters  of  faith, 
and  even  as  to  the  general  import  of  its  doc- 
trinal teaching.  Almost  all  who  really  valued  the 
Reformation  in  England  held  as  yet  by  the  evan- 
gelical system  taught  in  early  times  by  Augus- 
tine, and  in  later  by  Anselm,  Bradwardine,  and 
Wyclif  It  was  the  Anglo-Catholic  party  which, 
as  it  developed,  first  broke  up  the  doctrinal  har- 
mony of  the  Reformed  Church,  and  drifted  farther 
and  farther  from  the  standpoint  of  its  early  leaders, 
till  the  Supralapsarianism  of  Whitgift  passed  into 
the  minimized  Augustinianism  of  Hooker,  and 
that  into  the  Arminianism  of  Laud,  and  the  semi- 
Pelagianism  of  Jeremy  Taylor.  So  far  again  as 
concerned  matters  of  worship  and  church  polity, 
the  only  expression  at  variance  with  the  principle 
of  Puritanism  in  the  Articles  of  the  Church  was 
the  first  clause  of  the  XXth  Article,  asserting  the 


Its  Developme)it  and  History.  5 

power  of  the  Church  to  decree  rites  and  cere- 
monies. This  clause  was  not  contained  in  the 
corresponding  article  as  framed  in  the  time  of 
Edward  VI. ;  and  the  Puritans  strenuously  con- 
tended it  had  been  foisted  in,  somewhat  inconsid- 
erately, in  the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth.^  They 
further  contended  that,  when  viewed  in  connection 
with  the  limiting  clause  that  followed,  it  was  in- 
sufficient to  justify  what  they  condemned  and 
renounced.  The  rites  and  ceremonies  at  which 
they  scrupled  were  not,  they  held,  things  purely 
indifferent,  which  the  Church,  under  such  a  clause, 
might  claim  to  enjoin,  but  things  unlawful  as 
having  been  abused  to  purposes  of  idolatry  and 
superstition,  and  therefore  to  be  laid  aside  as  con- 
trary to  the  spirit  if  not  to  the  letter  of  Holy  Writ. 
In  this  respect  too  the  agreement  between  them 
and  those  who  stood  aloof  from  them,  was  greater 
in  early  than  in  later  times.  Many  of  the  first 
Elizabethan  bishops  agreed  with  them,  and  would 
willingly  have  abandoned  the  obnoxious  ceremo- 
nies if  the  queen  would  have  consented.^    Indeed, 

^  vSome  of  them  attributed  it  to  Laud,  but  wrongly,  as  he  did  its 
omission  to  them.  It  is  found  in  the  Latin  edition  of  1563,  but 
not  in  that  of  1571,  nor  in  the  first  English  edition  of  1 563,  nor 
in  that  of  1571.  Lamb,  Card  well,  and  Hallam  doubt  if  it  was 
authorized  by  Convocation  or  by  Parliament. 

2  Zurich  Letters,  passim.  \\\  the  doctrinal  declaration  issued 
by  them  in  1 559,  the  subscriber  is  required  to  disallow  all  "vain 
worshiping  of  God  devised  by  man's  phantasy,  besides  or  con- 
trary to  the  Scriptures." 


6  Origin  of  Puritanism 

for  more  than  a  century  there  were  not  wanting 
great  and  good  men,  free  from  all  taint  of  Puritan- 
ism, who  contended  that,  if  only  the  authorities  in 
Church  and  State  could  be  persuaded  to  consent, 
all  that  the  Puritans  desired  in  regard  to  worship 
might  be  conceded  without  real  injury  to  religion 
or  danger  to  the  Church/ 

Their  assertion  of  the  essential  identity  of  bish- 
ops and  presbyters  in  the  apostolic  church  was 
also  to  a  certain  extent  allowed ;  and  while  some 
contended  for  the  reduction  of  the  hierarchy  to 
more  primitive  dimensions,  others,  who  defended 
it  as  lawful,  did  so  not  on  the  ground  of  any 
supposed  Divine  sanction,  but  on  the  ground  of 
antiquity,  expediency,  or  the  propriety  of  the 
Church  adapting  her  external  framework  to  the 
state  of  monarchies  as  well  as  of  republics.  It 
was  not  till  the  very  close  of  the  sixteenth  century 
that  higher  ground  was  taken  by  the  opponents 
of  Puritanism  on  this  point,  and  at  first  it  was 
taken  only  by  a  few  of  them. 

But  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  Puritanism 
was  something  more  than  a  system  of  doctrine, 

1  The  celebrated  John  Hales  of  Eton,  though  neither  Calvinist 
nor  Precisian,  did  not  hesitate  to  say  "prayer,  confession,  thanks- 
giving, reading  of  the  Scriptures,  and  administration  of  the  Sacra- 
ments in  the  plainest  and  simplest  manner,  were  matter  enough 
to  furnish  out  a  sufficient  liturg}',  though  nothing  either  of  private 
opinion  or  of  Church  pomp,  of  garments  ...  or  of  many  super- 
fluities which  creep  into  the  Church  under  the  name  of  order  and 
decency  did  interpose  itself."— TV^r/  on  Schism,  p.  5. 


Its  Devclopmejit  and  History.  7 

liowcvcr  scriptural,  or  a  form  of  worship  and  church 
poh'ty  however  primitive.  It  was  above  all,  as 
Heppe  has  recently  so  well  shown,'  a  life,  a  real, 
earnest,  practical  life, — a  stream  welling  forth  pure 
and  copious  from  the  deepest  depths  of  their 
spiritual  natures,  and  by  its  unfailing  supplies  stim- 
ulating and  sustaining  many  forms  of  Christian 
activity  and  loving  self-sacrifice — a  fire  kindled  and 
kept  alive  from  above,  to  purge,  re-mould,  and 

^  Geschichte  des  Pietistnus,  etc.,  pp.  20,  21.  Their  idea  was, 
'*  Dass  das  Christenthum  nothwendig  Leben,  und  zwar  ein  ernstes, 
ganz  und  gar  vom  Worte  Gottes  beherrschtes  und  streng  geregeltes 
Leben  sein  niusse,  in  welchem  der  Christ  sich  nicht  gehen  zu  lassen 
sondern  sich  unablassig  zu  tiben,  sich  in  Zucht  zu  nehmen,  sich 
selbst  in  Angesichte  des  Wortes  Gottes  zu  priifen  und  durch 
anhaltendes  Gebet,  durch  Meditation,  durch  Fasten,  iiberhaupt 
durch  methodische  und  ascetische  Uebung  in  der  Gottseligkeit 
einer  immer  vollkommeneren  Ileiligung  nachzustreben  habe." 
"  The  distinctive  feature  of  Puritanism  was  not  to  be  found  in  its 
logical  severity  of  doctrine  or  in  its  peculiar  forms  of  worship,  but 
in  its  clear  conception  of  the  immediate  relation  existing  between 
every  individual  soul  and  its  God,  and  in  its  firm  persuasion  that 
every  man  was  intrusted  with  a  work  which  he  was  bound  to  carry 
out  for  the  benefit  of  his  fellow-creatures.  Under  both  these  as- 
pects it  was  pre-eminently  the  religion  of  men  who  were  strug- 
gling for  liberty.  The  Puritan  was  not  his  own.  He  belonged  to 
God  and  to  his  country.  The  motives  which  urged  other  men  to 
give  way  before  the  corruptions  of  despotism  had  no  weight  with 
him.  The  temptations  which  drew  other  men  aside  to  make  their 
liberty  a  cloak  for  licentiousness  had  no  attractions  for  him.  Under 
the  watchwords  of  faith  and  duty  our  English  liberties  were  won  ; 
and  however  much  the  outward  forms  of  Puritanism  may  have 
fallen  into  decay,  it  is  certain  it  is  under  the  same  watchwords 
alone  that  they  will  be  preserved  as  a  heritage  to  our  children." — 
History  of  England  from  the  Accession  of  James  /.,  by  S.  R. 
Gardiner,  vol.  ii.  pp.  487,  489.     See  also  Appendix,  Note  A. 


8  Origin  of  Piiritanis77i 

transform  the  individual  soul,  and  so  the  whole 
man.  It  was  not  till  this  wellspring  of  higher 
life  was  dried  up, — not  till  the  glowing  fire  within, 
which  the  Spirit  of  God  had  kindled,  had  died 
out,  or  died  down,  that  Puritanism  became  rigid 
and  repulsive,  and  lost  its  real  power  both  over  its 
own  adherents  and  over  the  outside  world.  Let  me 
enter  a  little  more,  though  it  can  only  be  a  little 
more,  into  details  as  to  its  origin  and  development. 
I  have  told  you  that  the  principle  of  Puritanism 
— the  principle  which,  in  fully  developed  form, 
was  to  be  enshrined  in  the  xxth  chapter  of  our 
Confession  of  Faith  ^ — may  be  traced,  at  least  in 
germ,  in  the  writings  of  the  noble  man  who,  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  followed  most  closely  in 
the  footsteps  of  Wyclif,  and  is  now  regarded  by 
many  as  the.  true  Reformer  of  his  country.  More 
sweetly  persuasive,  more  powerfully  constraining, 
than  all  the  fitful  edicts  and  articles  of  Henry 
VIII.,  and  all  the  timid  concessions  of  the  cautious 
Cranmer,  were  the  silent,  gentle,  holy  influences 
proceeding  from  the  lives,  labors,  and  sufferings, 
from  the  teachings,  oral  and  written,  of  the  un- 
official men  who  had  given  up  all  for  Christ,  and 
who,  notwithstanding  the  hazards  they  incurred, 
shunned  not  to  declare  the  whole  counsel  of  God. 

1  "  God  alone  is  I>ord  of  the  conscience,  and  hath  left  it  free 
from  the  doctrines  and  commandments  of  men  which  are  in  any- 
thing contrary  to  His  Word  or  beside  it  in  matters  of  faith  and 
worship!'''     (Some  copies  for  in  read  if.') 


Its  Development  and  History.  9 

They  strove  to  set  it  forth  purely  and  fully  by 
first  of  all  translating  into  their  native  tongue  the 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  Fore- 
most among  these  worthies  stands  William  Tyn- 
dale,  "  an  apostle  of  our  England,"  as  Foxe  has 
termed  him,  and  beyond  question  the  chief  instru- 
ment used  by  God  in  preparing  for  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race  that  best  of  His  gifts  to  it,  our  time- 
honored  English  Bible,  with  its  simple,  racy  yet 
majestic,  and  now  venerable  forms  of  speech. 

Tyndale  was  born  in  Gloucestershire  about  1484, 
was  early  sent  to  Oxford,  where  he  distinguished 
himself  in  several  liberal  studies.  He  then  re- 
moved to  Cambridge,  where  he  prosecuted  the 
study  of  Greek  under  Erasmus,  Soon  after,  he 
formed  the  resolution  which  it  may  be  said  to  have 
been  the  one  object  of  his  life  to  carry  out,  viz., 
that  if  God  should  spare  him  he  would  cause  the 
boy  that  driveth  the  plow  to  have  more  knowl- 
edge of  the  Scriptures  than  the  priests  of  the 
Church  then  had.^  At  first  he  thought  to  attain 
his  object  through  the  aid  and  patronage  of 
Tunstal,  Bishop  of  London,  whose  learning  and 
liberality  Erasmus  had  so  generously  lauded.  He 
found,  however,  by  sad  experience  not  only  that 
there  was  no  room  for  the  translator  of  the  New 

^  Demaus's  Life  of  William  Tyndale  ;  also  Biographical  Notice 
prefixed  to  Parker  Society's  edition  of  his  Doctrinal  Treatises,  by 
Professor  Walter,  pp.  Ixi,  Ixxiii,  Ixxv. 


ro  Origin  of  Ptiritanism 

Testament  "  in  my  Lord  of  London's  palace,"  but 
also  that  there  was  no  safe  retreat  for  him  in  all 
England.  Even  in  his  exile  but  little  peace  and 
safety  fell  to  his  lot.  His  steps  were  dogged  by 
the  emissaries  of  the  king  and  the  prelates,  as  well 
as  by  their  foreign  sycophants.  The  reformer's 
noble  work  was  retarded  and  his  life  embittered 
by  their  hostile  efforts.  But  in  exile  and  poverty 
he  labored  on  even  as  he  had  done  in  England, 
"  studying  most  part  of  the  day  and  night  at  his 
book,  eating  but  sodden  meat  if  he  might  have 
his  will,  and  drinking  small  single  beer ;"  largely 
dependent  on  the  charities  of  Christian  friends  for 
the  supply  of  his  wants,  yet  reserving  most  of 
what  they  bestowed  on  him  for  the  sick  and  poor, 
and  commending  himself  to  the  English  merchants 
at  Antwerp,  as  to  Scottish  students  at  Marburg, 
by  his  singularly  gentle  and  attractive  life.  Not- 
withstanding all  difficulties  and  privations  he 
faltered  not  in  his  sacred  purpose  till  he  had 
brought  out  several  editions  of  his  New  Testament, 
had  introduced  it  into  Scotland  as  well  as  into 
England,  and  had  got  ready  for  the  press  a  large 
portion  of  the  Old  Testament.  In  the  weary 
months  which  he  spent  in  the  prison  at  Vilvorde, 
just  before  his  trial  and  martyrdom,  it  has  been 
supposed  that,  literally  to  carry  out  his  cherished 
purpose,  he  prepared  for  the  press  an  edition  of 
the  New  Testament  in  the  vulgar  dialect,  and  with 


Its  Development  and  History,  1 1 

its  spelling  conformed  to  the  rude  pronunciation 
of  the  ploughboys  of  his  native  district.^  He 
perished  at  the  stake  on  the  6th  of  October  1536, 
with  the  prayer  on  his  lips,  "  Lord,  open  the  king 
of  England's  eyes."  And  before  another  year  had 
begun  its  course  "  his  prayer  may  be  said  to  have 
been  answered,  for  the  first  volume  of  Holy 
Scripture  ever  printed  on  English  soil  came  forth 
from  the  press  of  the  king's  own  printer — a  folio 
Testament,  of  Tyndale's  version,  with  his  long- 
proscribed  name  on  its  title-page."  In  the  prefaces 
and  prologues  prefixed  to  his  translation  of  the 
several  books  of  the  New  Testament,  as  well  as 
in  the  didactic  and  controversial  treatises  which 
he  published  separately,  Tyndale  maintained  the 
sufficiency  and  authority  of  Holy  Scripture  in 
thorough  Protestant  and  Puritan  style,  and  de- 
fended the  doctrines  of  grace  against  the  semi- 
Pelagianism  of  Erasmus  and  Sir  Thomas  More, 
ere  Calvin  had  yet  entered  the  lists  as  the  cham- 
pion of  the  old  Augustinianism.  He  asserted  the 
Scriptural  identity  of  presbyters  and  bishops,  and 
the  propriety  of  a  simple  scriptural  form  of  wor- 
ship, and  especially  of  that  form  of  observing  the 
Lord's  Supper,  which  came  to  be  identified  with 
the  Puritan  name  and  with  our  Scottish  Reformer.^ 

^  See  Professor  Walter  (p.  Ixxv.) ;  but  Demaus  gives  (p.  411)  a 
different  explanation  of  the  peculiar  spelling  of  that  edition. 

^  Tyndale's  treatise  Of  the  Supper  of  the  Lord ;  vol.  iii.  pp. 
265,  266  of  Parker  Society's  edition  of  his  works  :  "  Come  forth 


1 2  Origin  of  Piiritajiism 

Next  to  Tyndale  falls  to  be  placed  Miles  Cov- 
erdale,  who  followed  so  closely  in  his  footsteps, 
laboring  in  the  same  great  work,  and  sharing 
many  of  the  same  great  trials  and  privations.  Cov- 
erdale  is  supposed  to  have  been  a  native  of  the 
North  Riding  of  Yorkshire,  and  to  have  been  born 
in  1488.  He  was  educated  at  Cambridge,  and 
formed  one  of  the  band  of  youthful  reformers 
trained  by  Dr.  Barnes,  Prior  of  the  Augustine 
Friars  there.  "  Nothing  in  the  world,"  he  says  in 
the  first  letter  he  wrote  to  Cromwell,  "  I  desire  but 
books ;  these  once  had,  I  do  not  doubt  but  Almighty 
God  shall  perform  that  in  me  which  he  hath  be- 
gun." The  books  were  got  and  God  blessed  the 
study  of  them,  so  that  he  became  one  of  the  ear- 
liest preachers  of  the  new  faith  in  Essex  and 
Suffolk.  In  October  1535,  he  published  the  first 
edition  of  his  translation  of  the  whole  Bible.  It 
appears  to  have  been  printed  abroad,  probably  at 
Zurich ;  but  in  1537  it  was  republished  in  London. 
Though  occasionally  favored  by  Cranmer  and 
Cromwell,  Coverdale  had  to  hurry  into  exile  when 
the  bloody  statute  of  the  Six  Articles  was  passed. 
He  spent  some  time  at  Tubingen,  and  for  several 
years  he  had  to  content  himself  with  a  very  humble 
post  in  the  Palatinate,  and  to  endure  pinching 
poverty,  while    by  his   writings    he  was    making 

reverently  unto  the  Lord's  table,  the  congregation  now  set  round 
about  it  and  in  their  other  convenient  seats." 


Its  Development  and  History.  13 

many  rich.  He  was  raised  from  the  post  of  pastor 
and  teacher  at  Bergzabern  to  the  bishopric  of  Ex- 
eter by  the  good  king  Edward,  and  contributed 
largely  to  the  progress  of  the  Reformation  in  his 
brief  reign.  But  he  had  to  leave  again  on  the 
accession  of  Mary,  being  rescued  from  prison  and 
death  only  by  the  persistent  intercession  of  the  king 
of  Denmark,  to  whom  his  brother-in-law — a  Scot 
by  name  M'Alpin  or  Machabeus — was  chaplain.^ 
He  did  not  disdain  when  again  in  exile  to  act  as 
a  humble  elder  in  Knox's  congregation  at  Ge- 
neva ;  ^  nor,  though  himself  the  author  of  an 
English  version  of  the  Scriptures,  did  he  refuse  to 
take  a  part  in  preparing  and  carrying  through  the 
press  the  well-known  Genevan  version  of  the  New 
Testament,  which  became  so  soon  and  remained 
so  long  the  favorite  one  among  the  Puritans.^ 
On  his  return  to  his  native  country  after  the  death 
of  Mary  he  consented  to  take  part  in  the  con- 
secration of  the  first  Elizabethan  archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  and  was  permitted  to  do  so,  without 
rochet  or  surplice,  and   in  his  plain  black  gown.^ 

^  Biographical  Notice  of  Coverdale,  prefixed  to  Parker  Society's 
edition  of  his  Remains,  pp.  vii.-xiv. 

■''  Liv7'e  des  Anglois,  printed  by  J.  S.  Burn  in  1 83 1,  as  also  my 
own  edition  of  the  "  Livre,"  in  the  volume  of  the  Proceedings  of 
the  General  Presbyterian  Council,  which  met  in  London  in  1888. 

3  He  returned  to  England  before  the  Version  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment was  completed. 

*  See  documents  as  to  Parker's  consecration  in  Burnet's  History 
of  the  Refoj-mation  ;  No.  9  :  "  Toga  lanea  talari  utebatur." 


1 4  Origin  of  Puritanism 

Yet  for  his  nonconformity  in  regard  to  the  habits, 
as  they  were  termed,  or  for  his  connection  with 
the  Genevan  exiles,  he  was  left  for  four  years 
without  preferment,  and  within  two  years  after- 
wards he  had  to  give  up  the  only  preferment 
allotted  to  him — the  humble  benefice  of  St.  Mag- 
nus, London  Bridge.  Thus  the  man  who  after 
Tyndale  did  most  to  perfect  our  Anglo-Saxon 
version  of  the  Scriptures,  when  on  the  verge  of 
eighty  years  of  age,  was  consigned  to  neglect  and 
penury  ^ — in  such  circumstances  not  less  hard  to 
bear  than  the  prison  and  the  stake  at  Vilvorde. 

Hugh  Latimer^  and  John  Hooper  were  hardly 
less  notable  characters  than  the  two  I  have  men- 

1  "  Pauper  et  peregrinus  "  are  the  words  of  Grindal,  who  once 
and  again  pleaded  for  him  but  pleaded  in  vain. 

*  The  following  account  of  him  by  Alexander  Alesius,  written 
just  after  his  cruel  martyrdom,  cannot  fail  even  yet  to  interest  us 
in  him : — "  He  who  has  made  the  acquaintance  of  Dr.  Latimer, 
Bishop  of  Worcester,  has  seen  Polycarp— a  venerable  old  man, 
gentle,  grave,  affable,  learned,  eloquent,  the  friend  of  the  poor,  dear 
to  all  the  pious  and  learned,  revered  by  myself.  How  often  have 
I  seen  and  heard  him  teaching  the  gospel  before  Henry  VHI.,  the 
King  of  England,  in  the  royal  palaces  at  Westminster,  Greenwich, 
and  Hampton  Court,  with  the  greatest  commendation  and  applause 
of  the  king,  of  the  nobles  of  the  realm,  and  of  all  ranks  of  the 
community.  Who  at  that  time  was  dearer  to  the  king — and  to  all 
the  nobility  ?  Who  then  was  not  proud  to  shake  hands  with  him  ? 
Who  did  not  esteem  it  a  great  privilege  to  converse  with  him  ? 
And  yet  such  was  his  humility  and  kindliness  that  at  court,  and  in 
the  streets  of  London,  he  would  take  me,  an  exile,  by  the  arm  and 
converse  with  me  right  pleasantly.  I  remember  yet  the  things  he 
then  foretold  me,  and  which  events  have  since  verified."  Psalm 
xxxvii.  verses  l  and  2,  in  his  Primus  Liber  Psabnoruni. 


Its  Development  and  History.  15 

tioned.  Both  were  bold  confessors  of  the  truth  in 
days  when  it  was  dangerous  to  be  so,  and  though 
they  were  both  ultimately  placed  in  high  official  sta- 
tions, their  influence  tended  decidedly  in  the  same 
direction  as  that  of  Tyndale  and  Coverdale.  No 
one  who  reads  the  homely,  racy,  yet  earnest  ser- 
mons of  the  former,  or  the  record  of  the  theologi- 
cal discussion  in  which  he  took  part  at  Oxford, 
will  venture  to  identify  him  with  Anglo-Catholi- 
cism in  any  shape  or  form.  No  one  who  studies 
the  story  of  the  latter  can  fail  to  own  that  if  he 
was  not,  as  Heylin  affirms,  the  first  Nonconformist 
in  England,  he  was  at  least,  as  Principal  Lorimer 
has  recently  shovv^n,  the  father  of  that  school  of 
Moderate  Puritans,  who  whether,  as  at  first,  under 
that  name  or,  as  in  later  times,  under  the  name 
of  Evangelicals  or  Low  Churchmen,  have  clung 
to  the  Church  of  their  fathers  and  made  good  their 
right  to  a  place  within  her  pale,  emphasizing  her 
Protestant  teaching, — striving  in  every  possible 
way  to  foster  her  inner  life,  and  her  efficiency  in 
every  department  of  Christian  work, — at  times 
sympathizing  with  the  efforts  made  for  further 
reform,  and  longing  to  draw  closer  the  bonds 
between  their  own  Church  and  the  other  churches 
of  the  Reformation.  Early  imbibing  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Reformers,  and  obliged  in  conse- 
quence to  flee  from  his  native  land.  Hooper,  after 
passing  through  many  privations,  found  a  refuge 


1 6  Origin  of  Puritanism 

at  Zurich.  There  he  studied  under  Henry  Bul- 
Hnger, — Zwingli's  successor, — who  was  honored 
through  him,  and  others,  as  well  as  more  directly 
by  his  own  writings,  largely  to  aid  the  progress 
and  determine  the  character  of  the  Reformation 
in  England.  He  brought  back  with  him,  to  his 
native  country,  much  of  the  earnest  faith  and 
liberal  thought  of  his  teacher.  Immediate  scope 
was  found  for  his  great  powers  as  a  preacher,  and 
notwithstanding  his  advanced  opinions,  he  was 
speedily  promoted  to  high  office,  being  installed 
in  one  bishopric,  and  appointed  administrator  of 
another.  It  ought  to  be  more  generally  known 
than  it  yet  is,  that  long  before  proscribed  Papist 
or  contemned  Baptist  had  ventured  to  put  in 
a  plea  for  toleration,  this  noble-hearted  Puritan 
Bishop  had  fully  grasped  its  principle.  In  one 
of  his  earliest  treatises  he  says :  "  As  touching 
the  superiors  powers  of  the  earth,  it  is  well  known 
to  all  them  that  have  readen  and  marked  the 
Scripture  that  it  appertaineth  nothing  unto  their 
office  to  make  any  law  to  govern  the  conscience 
of  their  subjects  in  religion."^  In  one  of  the 
last  letters  written  in  the  prison  from  which  he 
passed  to  his  martyrdom,  and  addressed  to  the 
Convocation  then  sitting,  he  gave  still  bolder 
utterance  to  his  sentiments :  "  Cogitate  apud  vos 
ipsos,  an    hoc  sit   piorum    ministrorum   ecclesiae 

*  Early  IVritings  of  Bp.  Hooper,  p.  280, 


Its  Development  and  History.  17 

officium,  vi,  metu  et  pavore,  corda  hominum  in 
vestras  partes  compellere.  Profecto  Christus  non 
ignem,  non  gladitun,  non  carceres,  non  vincula,  non 
violentian,  non  bononini  confiscationcm,  non  rcgincce 
inajes  talis  terror  em  media  org  an  a  constitidt  quibus 
Veritas  vcrbi  sui  mnndo  promulgaretiir ;  sed,  miti 
ac  diligenti  praedicatione  evangelii  sui,  mundum 
ab  errore  et  idololatria  converti  praecepit."  ^  More- 
over, he  firmly  asserted  that  in  matters  of  faith  no 
authority  of  princes  or  bishops  was  to  be  acknow- 
ledged *'  citra  verbum  Dei,"  and  that  "  ipsa  univer- 
salis ecclesiae  auctoritas  nulla  est  7nsi  qiiatenus  a 
verbo  Dei  pendeat!' 

In  several  other  respects  Hooper  was  in  advance 
of  his  time.  In  opposing  the  Bishop  of  Winches- 
ter's book  on  the  Sacrament  of  the  Altar,  he  main- 
tained that  "  it  is  ill  done  to  condemn  the  infants 
of  the  Christians  that  die  without  baptism  of  whose 
salvation  by  the  Scriptures  we  be  assured ;"  and 
said  he  "would  likewise  judge  well  of  the  infants 
of  the  infidels  who  have  none  other  sin  in  them 
but  original  ...  It  is  not  against  the  faith  of  a 
Christian  man  to  say  that  Chris  fs  death  and  pas- 
sion extendeth  as  far  for  the  salvation  of  innocents, 
as  Adam's  sin  made  all  his  posterity  liable  to  con- 
demnationT  The  following  gems,  selected  almost 
at  random  from  his  earlier  treatises,  have  all,  more 
or  less,  a  Puritan  tinge.     **  Men,"  he  says,  "  may 

*  Later  Writings  of  fip.  Hooper,  p.  386. 


1 8  Orighi  of  Puritanism 

have  the  gift  of  God  to  interpret  the  Scripture 
unto  other,  but  never  autlwrity  to  interpret  it 
otherwise  than  it  interpreteth  itself."  "  The  Scrip- 
tures solely  and  the  Apostles'  Church  are  to  be 
followed,  and  no  man's  authority,  be  he  Augus- 
tine, Tertullian,  or  other,  Cherubim  or  Seraphim." 
"  Christ  and  his  Apostles  be  grandfathers  in  age 
to  the  doctors  and  masters  in  learning.  Repose 
thyself  only  upon  the  Church  that  they  have 
taught  thee  by  the  Scripture.  Fear  neither  of  the 
ordinary  power  nor  succession  of  Bishops,  nor  of 
the  major  part."  "  God  hath  bound  his  Church 
and  all  men  that  be  of  his  Church  unto  the  Word 
of  God.  It  is  bound  unto  no  title  or  name  of 
men,  nor  unto  any  ordinary  succession  of  Bishops 
or  Priests ;  longer  than  they  teach  the  doctrine 
contained  in  Scripture  no  man  should  give  hear- 
ing unto  them."  *'  There  is  no  church  can  be 
governed  without  this  discipline,  for  where  it  is 
not  there  see  we  no  godliness  at  all,  but  carnal 
liberty  and  vicious  life." 

Perhaps  however  the  most  noteworthy  of  his 
early  writings  is  his  exposition  of  the  ten  com- 
mandments, and  particularly  his  exposition  of  the 
fourth,  where  he  explains  that  the  rest  of  the 
Sabbath  was  necessary :  first,  to  secure  both  to 
man  and  beast  that  periodic  repose  without  which 
they  could  never  endure  *'  the  travail  of  earth ;" 
second,  not   that  men  might  give  themselves  to 


Its  Developme7it  and  History.  19 

idleness  and  pastime  such  as  was  then  used  amonj^ 
Christian  peoples,  but  that,  being  free  from  the 
travail  of  the  world,  they  might  give  themselves  to 
meditation  on  the  works  and  benefits  of  God,  the 
hearing  of  his  Holy  Word,  and  the  care  of  the 
sick  and  poor;  and  third,  that  it  might  be  to 
them  a  standing  type  and  figure  of  the  everlasting 
rest  that  remaineth  for  the  people  of  God.  "  This 
Sunday,"  he  continues,  **  that  we  observe,  is  not 
the  conujiaudnicnt  of  Dten,  as  many  say,  that 
would,  under  the  pretence  of  this  one  law,  bind 
the  Church  of  Christ  to  all  other  laws  that  they 
have  ungodly  prescribed  unto  the  Church ;  but 
it  is  by  express  words  comuianded  that  zve  sJiould 
observe  tins  day  (Sunday)  for  onr  Sabbath!' '  The 
Puritans  therefore  of  a  later  time,  in  contending 
against  the  Book  of  Sports  and  the  pastimes  by 
which  the  Lord's  Day  continued  to  be  profaned 
in  many  parts  of  England,  only  resumed  the  con- 
test which  Hooper  had  begun — and  revived  the 
teaching  he  had  learned  from  Bullinger,  the  most 
conservative  in  this  respect  perhaps  of  all  the  Re- 
formers. He  also  favored  a  more  simple  way  of 
observing  the  Lord's  Supper  than  was  then  in 
use,^  wore  only  on  certain  occasions  the  episcopal 
habits,  and  associated  with  himself  in  the  admin- 
istration of  his  extensive  dioceses  several  super- 
intendents,  to    whom    he    gave    special    charge 

1  Early  Writings  of  Bp.  Hooper,  p.  342.     2  /^/^  pp   ^-^5^  ^^^^ 


20  Origin  of  Puritanism 

of  matters  of  discipline,  as  well  as  of  the  meet- 
ings of  the  clergy  for  studying  the  Word 
of  God,  and  the  simpler  elements  of  religious 
truth.' 

Farrar,  Bishop  of  St.  David's,  who  suffered 
martyrdom  about  the  same  time,  seems  to  have 
belonged  to  the  same  school  as  Hooper.  So  also 
did  Ponet  or  Poynet,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  who 
drew  up  one  of  the  earliest  English  Protestant 
Catechisms,  befriended  Knox  at  Frankfort,  and 
was  a  member  of  his  congregation  at  Geneva. 
Even  Ridley,  who  at  one  time  had  contended  so 
bitterly  with  Hooper,  seems  to  have  relented  in 
his  last  days,  and  not  only  exchanged  friendly 
greetings  with  his  former  antagonist,  but  ex- 
pressed a  hope  that  they  might  be  one  in  red 
though  they  had  been  two  in  white.  He  had 
been  zealous  in  removing  from  the  churches 
throughout  his  diocese  altars  and  images,  and 
providing  tables  for  the  administration  of  the 
Lord's  Supper.  He  disputed  ably  at  Oxford 
against  transubstantiation,  and  he  declared  of  the 
priestly  robes  thrust  on  him  before  his  degrada- 
tion that  they  were  more  ludicrous  than  an  actor's 
in  a  play.     Like  Hooper  and  Latimer,  he  sealed 

^  Biographical  Notice  prefixed  to  Parker  Society's  edition  of  his 
works,  pp.  xvii,  xix.  "  No  father  in  his  household,  no  gardener 
in  his  garden,  nor  husbandman  in  his  vineyard  was  more  or  better 
occupied  than  he  in  his  diocese  ...  in  teaching  and  preaching  to 
the  people  there." 


Its  Development  and  History.  21 

his   testimony   with   his   blood    rather    than    give 
place  to  Romish  error  and  will-worship. 

I  do  not  venture  to  include  among  these  pio- 
neers and  earliest  representatives  of  Puritanism 
the  name  of  the  amiable,  thoughtful,  cautious  but 
somewhat  timid  Cranmer.  No  doubt  Dr.  Hook 
and  other  High  Churchmen  of  the  present  day  are 
right  in  refusing  to  accept  him  as  a  representative 
of  Anglo-Catholicism.  His  standpoint  was  more 
decidedly  Protestant.  Like  several  good  men  in 
the  old  church,  he  held,  at  least  in  his  earlier  days, 
that  by  God's  law,  a  bishop  and  a  priest  were  one, 
and  in  later  life  he  defended  with  great  ability 
and  learning  the  Reformed  doctrine  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  against  Gardiner,  Bishop  of  Winchester. 
From  first  to  last  he  was  not  ashamed  to  own  the 
ministers  of  the  Protestant  churches  on  the  Conti- 
nent as  brethren  in  Christ,  to  encourage  several 
of  them  to  settle  in  England,  to  provide  for  them 
while  there,  and  to  get  two  of  the  most  prominent 
of  them  appointed  as  Professors  of  Divinity  in  the 
Universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  Once  and 
again  he  invited  the  co-operation  of  their  leaders 
in  carrying  out  a  scheme  he  had  much  at  heart, 
for  gathering  in  council  their  best  men,  and  en- 
gaging them  in  preparing  a  common  creed,  the 
acceptance  of  which  might  bind  them  more  firmly 
together,  vindicate  them  from  the  reproaches  of 
their  adversaries,  and  supply  an  antidote  to  the 


22  Origin  of  Puritanism 

creed  then  being  framed  at  Trent.  He  drew 
largely  on  foreign  sources  for  the  Articles  he  ul- 
timately prepared  for  the  English  Church,  and 
still  more  largely  for  the  materials  of  the  Cate- 
chisms he  translated  or  sanctioned.  But  his  own 
leanings  were  not  toward  such  a  sweeping  refor- 
mation as  had  elsewhere  been  carried  out,  perhaps 
not  decidedly  in  favor  of  all  that  before  the  death 
of  Edward  VI.  he  had  been  prevailed  on  to  con- 
cede. He  certainly  laid  it  down  in  the  preface  to 
the  English  ordinal  that  ever  since  the  Apostles' 
days  there  had  been  three  orders  of  ministers  in 
the  church,  and  resolutely  adhered  far  more  closely 
to  the  ancient  forms  of  devotion  than  was  done  in 
the  liturgies  of  the  Reformed  churches  abroad. 
He  urged  with  much  persistence  the  injunction 
of  kneeling  in  the  act  of  receiving  the  communion 
as  well  as  of  wearing  the  old  clerical  habits.  Ac- 
cording to  a  Lasco,  he  seems  to  have  suggested 
the  enforcing  of  the  former  by  civil  penalties,  just 
as  he  had  by  the  same  means  compelled  Bishop 
Hooper  to  accept  consecration  in  the  episcopal 
robes.  He  somewhat  resented  the  deference  of  the 
Privy  Council  to  Knox  and  the  more  thorough- 
going Reformers,  and  spoke  of  them  as  **  glorious 
and  unquiet  spirits  which  can  like  nothing  but 
that  is  after  their  own  fancy,"  and  denounced  their 
principle  (which  however  he  somewhat  misunder- 
stands or  misstates)  "  that  whatsoever  is  not  com- 


Its  Development  and  History.  23 

nianded  in  Scripture  is  against  Scripture  "  as  "  the 
chief  foundation  of  the  Anabaptists  and  divers 
other  sects."  ^  He  was,  however,  a  true-hearted 
Protestant,  and  one  for  whom  all  true-hearted 
Protestants  in  the  church  he  adorned  have  abun- 
dant cause  to  thank  God,  for  the  noble  service  he 
was  honored  to  do  for  it.^ 

It  would  be  unpardonable  for  a  Scotchman,  in 
such  a  sketch  as  this,  to  omit  all  reference  to  John 
Knox.  No  doubt  he  was  in  one  sense  a  foreigner 
in  England,  as  were  Bucer,  Martyr,  a  Lasco,  and 
others  from  the  Continent,  whose  counsel  and  aid 
were  welcomed  by  the  young  king  and  his  advisers. 
But   Knox  was    more   closely  allied   to  them   in 

1  Lorimer's  John  Knox  and  the  Church  of  England,  p.  104. 

'^  Perhaps  at  a  time  when  it  has  become  a  sort  of  fashion  to  dis- 
parage him,  the  following  testimony  to  his  worth  by  a  grateful 
Scottish  exile  whom  he  had  sheltered  and  befriended  may  not  be 
deemed  out  of  place.  It  is  thus  Alesins,  then  Professor  of 
Divinity  at  Leipzig,  in  the  epistle  dedicatory  to  his  Commentary 
on  the  Romans,  addresses  his  former  patron  :  "  Te  enim  tanquam 
parente  istic  usus  sum,  ad  te  in  omnibus  difficultatibus  pro  con- 
silio  et  auxilio  tanquam  ad  sacram  anchoram  confugi.  Tua  opera 
et  opes  semper  mihi  expositce  erant  .  .  .  Hunc  [meum]  amorem 
mirifice  auget  admiratio  excellentis  doctrinse  tuoe  et  acerrimi  judicii, 
magnge  sapientii^e,  gravitatis,  moderationis,  Clementine  in  delibera- 
tionibus  et  judiciis,  assiduum  et  indefessum  studium  in  quoerenda 
et  eruenda  veritate  .  .  .  munificentia  in  conquerendis  et  alendis 
hominibus  doctis  ex  omnibus  nationibus."  Finally,  he  testifies 
that  in  liis  lifelong  wanderings,  which  had  brought  him  into 
contact  with  men  of  many  cities  and  nations,  he  had  nowhere  met 
a  bishop  more  learned,  more  grave,  prudent,  pious,  humane,  and 
liberal,  and  that  he  only  refrains  from  saying  more  because  he 
knows  it  would  offend  the  Archljishop's  modesty. 


24  Origin  of  Puritanism 

speech,  and,  from  the  first,  could  be  utilized  as  a 
public  preacher  in  the  National  Church.  By  the 
offices  they  conferred  on  or  offered  to  him  it  is 
evident  that  they  looked  on  him  as  more  of  kin 
than  the  others.  By  the  course  he  followed  it  is 
evident  that  he  acknowledged  the  kinship,  and  was 
not  unprepared  to  sink  the  Scot  in  the  Briton, 
and  that,  so  far  as  conscience  suffered  him,  he  was 
ready  to  aid  the  reforming  party  in  England  in 
the  great  work  they  had  in  hand.  Freed  from  his 
captivity  in  the  French  galleys  through  English 
influence,  he  was  first  sent  as  special  preacher  to 
Berwick,  then  to  Newcastle,  and  the  neighboring 
parts,  disputing  while  there  before  Tunstal,  Bishop 
of  Durham,  and  his  doctors,  against  transubstan- 
tiation  and  the  other  errors  connected  with  the 
Romish  mass.  He  was  next  appointed  to  be  one 
of  the  King's  six  chaplains,  to  whom,  as  Dr.  Hook 
in  his  Lives  of  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury^ 
informs  us,  very  large  powers  were  at  that  time 
conceded.  In  this  office  he  had  not  only  occasion- 
ally to  preach  before  the  king  and  court,  but  also 
to  itinerate  in  various  districts  of  England,  and 
by  preaching,  conference,  and  disputation  endeavor 
to  wean  the  people  from  their  old  superstitions, 
and  win  them  over  to  the  new  faith.  He  was 
offered  the  bishopric  of  Rochester  for  the  express 
purpose  of  securing  that  a  man  of  energy  and 
*  New  Series,  vol.  v.  p.  13. 


Its  Development  and  History.  25 

resolution  should  be  near  the  cautious  and  some- 
what timid  primate  to  encourage  him,  and  also 
spur  him  on  when  occasion  called.  This  proffered 
honor  he  declined  ;  but  as  one  of  the  royal  chap- 
lains he  zealously  discharged  the  duties  of  his 
office,  and  helped  in  various  ways  the  progress 
of  the  Reformation.  He  was  consulted  in  regard 
to  the  Forty-two  Articles  and  the  second  Prayer 
Book  of  King  Edward,  and  from  the  documents 
recently  recovered  and  printed  by  Principal  Lori- 
mer  ^  it  is  evident  that  he  took  an  active  part  in 
the  revision  of  both.  To  the  last  he  contended 
against  kneeling  in  the  act  of  receiving  the  Lord's 
Supper,  and  did  this  with  such  persistence  and 
effect  that,  after  the  book  was  already  printed  off, 
an  additional  rubric  was  directed  to  be  inserted  on 
a  fly-leaf,  explaining  that  this  posture  was  meant 
solely  as  a  token  of  thankfulness  for  the  benefits 
received  through  the  ordinance,  but  in  no  sense 
as  an  act  of  homage  to  "  any  real  and  essential 
presence  there  being  of  Christ's  natural  flesh  and 
blood."  This  has  come  to  be  known  among  High 
Churchmen  as  the  black  rubric,  and  was  unques- 
tionably one  of  the  most  Protestant  things  in  this 
second  Prayer  Book  of  Edward  VI.^ 

^  John  Knox  and  the  Church  of  England,  pp.  109,  III,  267.  He 
had  administered  the  Lord's  Supper  in  a  simpler  form  at  Berwick. 
For  the  sources  of  this  form,  see  my  review  of  Lorimer's  "  John 
Knox,"  British  and  Foreign  Evangelical  Review  for  April,  1875. 

''  Elizabeth,  while  professing  to  re-establish  this  very  book  of 


26  Origin  of  Puritanism 

John  a  Lasco,  who,  as  superintendent  of  the 
foreign  churches  in  England,  occupied  a  position 
apart  from  the  National  Church,  owed  that  posi- 
tion to  the  high  esteem  in  which  he  was  held  by 
Cranmer  and  the  advisers  of  the  king.  He  was 
often  consulted  by  them  on  the  affairs  of  the 
Church,  and  stood  by  Knox  in  his  controversy 
about  the  mode  of  receiving  the  Lord's  Supper, 
and  with  Hooper  in  his  controversy  about  the 
vestments.  In  his  congregations  he  generally  fol- 
lowed simpler  forms  than  were  yet  sanctioned  for 
the  National  Church.  In  the  epistle  prefixed  to 
his  Forma  ac  Ratio  Tota  Ecdcsiastici  Minis ttrii 
in  Pcrcgrinot'iim  Ecclesia  Londini  insiituta  he  ex- 
pressly affirms  that,  as  England  was  not  then 
deemed  ripe  for  the  complete  reformation  which 
the  king  and  his  advisers  desired  it  to  attain,  he 
had  been  authorized  by  the  Privy  Council  and 
encouraged  by  the  king  to  draw  up  for  the 
churches  of  these  Protestant  refugees  a  constitu- 

her  brother,  did  so  with  a  few  changes  which  made  it  less  accept- 
able to  the  Puritans.  In  particular  she  took  care  to  expunge  the 
above  rubric,  as  well  as  to  prefix  to  the  sentences  addressed  by  the 
minister  to  the  communicants  certain  words  from  Edward's  first 
Book  which  might,  at  least,  leave  room  for  the  view  which  the 
rul)ric  was  intended  to  exclude.  The  restoration  of  this  rubric 
was  repeatedly  desired  by  the  Puritans  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth's 
successor,  but,  so  far  as  I  know,  in  vain.  It  was  certainly  left  out 
in  the  Prayer  Books  of  Charles  I.  Its  insertion  was  urged  by 
Archbishop  Ussher  and  other  moderate  men  in  1640,  but  it  was 
not  till  1 66 1  that  it  was  authoritatively  restored,  and  then  only  in 
a  somewhat  weakened  form. 


Its  Development  and  History.  27 

tion  ill  strict  accordance  with  Scripture  precept 
and  Apostolic  practice,  and  without  slavishly  ad- 
hering to  rites  and  ceremonies  of  human  origin, 
in  order  that  when  the  time  should  come  when  the 
laws  could  be  more  unreservedly  amended,  and  the 
nation,  as  a  whole,  could  bear  a  more  thorough 
Reformation,  it  might  have,  in  the  practice  of  these 
friendly  churches  within  its  own  borders,  a  model 
on  which  it  could  rely  and  to  which  it  might 
be  inclined  to  defer.  The  arrangements  made  in 
a  Lasco's  book  in  regard  to  worship  and  discipline 
resemble  generally  those  of  the  Reformed  churches 
on  the  Continent,  save  that  the  communicants 
neither  stood  nor  knelt,  but  sat,  when  receiving 
the  bread  and  wine  in  the  Lord's  Supper.^  To  a 
large  extent  these  arrangements  were  adopted 
by  Knox  among  the  English  exiles  at  Geneva — 
probably  just  because  they  had  virtually  received 
the  approval  or  toleration  of  Edward  VI.  and  his 
Council.  To  the  same  extent  and  probably  for 
the  same  reason  they  were  in  1560  adopted  also 
in  Scotland.  There  was  one  material  difference, 
however,  which  it  is  right  I  should  mention.  A 
Lasco,  while  holding  with  Jerome  and  even  with 
Cranmer  in  his  earlier  days,  that  by  the  Divine 
law  idem  erat  Prcsliytcr  gid  Episcopns,  held  also 

^  loannis  a  Lasco  Opera  (Kuyper's  edition),  vol.  ii.  pp.  lo, 
163.  This  "Forma"  was  used  from  1551  and  was  printed  in 
1555  at  Frankfort  on  the  Main. 


28  Origin  of  Piirita^iism 

that  it  was  agreeable  to  Scripture  that  the  presby- 
ters or  ministers  should  have  a  fixed  president 
selected  from  among  their  own  number  and  duly 
set  over  them.  He  did  not,  like  Knox  in  the 
First  Book  of  Discipline,  represent  such  super- 
intendency  as  an  extraordinary  and  temporary 
function  in  the  church,  but  regarded  it  as  an  ordi- 
nary and  permanent  one  ;  though  still  the  super- 
intendent in  his  view  was  of  the  same  order  as 
the  other  ministers,  and  there  was  no  duty  de- 
volved on  him  which  in  case  of  need  an  ordinary 
presbyter  might  not  undertake. 

The  English  Reformation  then,  we  are  warranted 
to  conclude,  had  not  yet  advanced  so  far  as  the 
kinsf  and  his  advisers  desired  it  should.  There 
was  much  they  thought  still  remaining  to  be  done, 
and  which  could  not  then  be  done,  to  insure  its 
completeness  as  well  as  its  more  general  accept- 
ance till  the  king  should  attain  ripe  age — be  able 
to  bring  his  full  influence  to  bear  both  on  his  no- 
bility and  his  people,  and  along  with  his  Parlia- 
ment give  final  legal  sanction  to  it.  But  already 
the  movement  had  been  pushed  on  beyond  its 
native  strength.  Favored  by  the  king,  and  many 
of  the  educated  classes,  and  the  burgesses  of  the 
larger  towns,  it  had  penetrated  but  partially  among 
the  nobility,  and  the  uneducated  masses  in  the 
provinces.  Notwithstanding  the  itinerant  labors 
of  the  royal  chaplains  and  other  special  preachers, 


Its  Development  and  History.  29 

the  country  had  been  but  partially  evangelized. 
The  people,  where  not  positively  hostile,  were 
largely  indifferent,  and  unprepared  to  stand  by  the 
new  faith  when  the  countenance  of  authority  was 
withdrawn.  Thus  a  terrible  reaction  set  in  when 
Edward's  sister  Mary  ascended  the  throne,  and  the 
support  of  the  authorities  was  transferred  to  the 
other  side.  No  doubt  the  cruelties  then  perpe- 
trated under  color  of  the  law  burned  deep  into  the 
heart  of  the  nation  that  hatred  of  Rome  which  it 
has  ever  since  retained,  and  prepared  even  many 
of  the  uninstructed  masses  in  the  provinces  ulti- 
mately to  welcome  or  to  tolerate  changes  to  which 
originally  they  were  not  inclined.  This  unfortu- 
nate queen  has  been  known  ever  since  as  the 
Bloody  Mary.  Her  brief  reign  might  well  be 
termed  the  **  killing  time  "  in  England,  as  the  reign 
of  Charles  II.  was  in  Scotland,  and  however  some 
in  our  day  may  palliate  or  minimize  its  excesses, 
enough  by  almost  universal  consent  remains  to 
brand  with  infamy  the  queen  and  her  advisers. 
Five  bishops,  a  considerable  number  of  inferior 
clergy,  and  a  goodly  contingent  of  pious  laymen, 
about  280  altogether,  are  said  to  have  been  burned 
at  the  stake  or  otherwise  to  have  suffered  for  their 
faith.^ 

1  It  is  thus  Alesius  records  the  grief  and  horror,  which  these 
cnielties  aroused  among  Protestants  at  the  time  :  "  Recens  plaga 
recrudescere  facit  vetus  vuhius,  cui  cicatrix  obduci  coepit.  De 
vivis  episcopis  crematis  post  Polycarpum  vix  scio  extare  exemplum, 


30  Origin  of  Puritanism 

The  homely  narrative  of  Foxe,  the  great  mar- 
tyrologist,  though  in  recent  times  it  has  been 
fiercely  assailed,  still  deservedly  retains  not  a 
little  of  its  old  popularity,  and  has  made  us  all 
familiar  with  the  sad  story  of  the  sufferings  and 
heroism  of  these  martyrs. 

While  their  leaders  thus  nobly  bore  witness  at 
the  stake  to  the  truths  which  aforetime  they  had 
taught,  many  of  the  reforming  clergy  who  had 
occupied  less  prominent  positions  deemed  it  their 
duty  to  act  on  the  counsel  of  our  Lord  (Matt.  x. 
23),  and  for  a  time  to  leave  their  native  land  and 
seek  shelter  where  they  would  be  free  to  worship 
God  according  to  their  consciences.  Repelled  by 
the  stricter  Lutherans  of  Germany,  they  were  re- 
ceived with  open  heart  and  arms  by  the  Reformed 
or  Calvinistic  churches,  both  in  Germany  and 
Switzerland.  At  Frankfort,  Embden,  Strasburg, 
Zurich,  Basel,  Aarau,  and  Geneva,  hospitality  was 
extended  to  them,  places  of  worship  were  assigned 
to  them,  and  opportunities  for  the  prosecution  of 
study,  and  the  practice  of  various  industries  were 
afforded  to  them.  If  not  without  privations  or 
occasional  differences  among  themselves,  yet  gen- 
erally in  quietness  and  with  profit,  they  were  en- 
abled to  pass  these  sad  years,  and  by  intercourse 

etiam  apud  illos  qui  fuerunt  Christiani  nominis  jiirati  hostes,  et 
jam  in  Anglia  vivi  ad  palum  comburuntur  episcopi  quorum  vita  et 
doctrina  vere  Apostolica  fuit !  " 


Its  Development  and  History.         31 

with  the  chiefs  of  the  Reformation  to  rcahze  more 
fully  their  oneness  with  them  in  sympathy  and 
convictions,  or  by  attendance  on  their  academic 
lectures  to  add  to  their  stores  of  knowledge  and 
to  get  their  ideas  widened,  their  principles  con- 
firmed, and  themselves  prepared  for  further  ser- 
vices in  happier  days,  of  which  I  propose  to  give 
some  account  in  my  next  Lecture. 


LECTURE  II. 

DEVELOPMENT    AND    HISTORY    OF    PURITANISM    UNDER 
QUEEN    ELIZABETH. 

In  my  last  Lecture  I  carried  down  my  historical 
sketch  of  the  origin  and  development  of  Puritan- 
ism to  the  time  of  the  Marian  persecution  and 
the  dispersion  of  the  English  exiles  among  the 
Continental  Protestants.  These  exiles  did  not 
need  to  go  abroad  to  learn  the  rudiments  of  Puri- 
tanism, either  of  its  doctrinal  teaching,  or  of  its 
forms  of  worship  or  of  church  order.  These  I 
told  you  they  had  already  learned  from  honored 
teachers  in  their  own  land,  who  had  drawn  their 
principles  chiefly  from  their  personal  study  of  the 
Word  of  God.  The  thing,  I  told  you,  existed  before 
the  name,  but  soon  after  the  time  to  which  we  have 
come  the  name  appeared  as  well  as  the  thing. 

The  exiles  were  now  brought  into  contact  with 
men  who  by  their  own  independent  study  had 
been  led  to  similar  conclusions,  and  there  were 
circumstances  in  the  recent  history  of  Conti- 
nental Protestantism  which  naturally  inclined  them 
to  attach  special  importance  to  these  conclusions. 

32 


Puritanism  under   Queen  Elizabeth. 


OJ 


A  {^"^  years  before,  the  Emperor  Charles  V.,  in 
his  anxiety  to  prevent  a  disruption  of  the  Church 
in  Germany,  had  endeavored,  at  the  moment  of 
his  poHtical  triumph  over  the  Protestant  Princes, 
to  impose  on  them  and  their  subjects  an  Interivi 
which,  while  allowing  them,  till  a  general  Council 
should  determine  otherwise,  to  retain  in  a  modified 
form  some  of  the  more  important  of  their  doctrinal 
convictions,  required  them  to  receive  back  the  old 
ritual  and  ceremonies,  including  of  course  the  old 
priestly  dresses  and  ornaments.  This  was  yielded 
to  by  many  for  a  time  from  dire  necessity,  but  was 
firmly  resisted  by  the  more  resolute.  Even  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  surplice  might  be  worn  was  an- 
swered by  these  negatively.^  The  consequence  was 
that  when  the  temporary  pressure  was  withdrawn 
and  they  recovered  their  liberty,  they  again  discard- 
ed the  old  rites  and  dresses,  and  became  more  de- 
cidedly opposed  to  them  than  before.  They  were 
symbols  of  their  temporary  enslavement  as  well  as 
relics  of  Popery,  not  retained  as  in  England  to  wean 
them  from  its  more  essential  corruptions,  but  to 
draw  them  back  to  the  Old  Church  more  fully. 

It  was  while  these  feelings  were  yet  fresh  and 
strong  that  the  English  exiles  came  among  them. 
The  magistrates  of  Frankfort  accordingly,  in  grant- 

1  Antwort  M.  F.  Illyrici  auff  den  Brieff  etlicher  Prediger  von 
der  Frage,  ob  sie  lieber  weichen  denn  den  Chorrock  anziehen 
soUen. 


34   Developme7it  and  History  of  Puintanism 

ing  them  an  asylum  and  a  church  for  their  wor- 
ship, made  the  condition  that  they  should  not  dis- 
sent in  doctrine  or  ceremonies  from  the  French 
congregation,  which  also  met  in  the  same  place. 
The  more  advanced  of  them  were  probably  glad  of 
such  a  good  reason  for  moving  in  the  direction  in 
which  they  wished  to  move.  They  would  not 
lack  encouragement  from  a  Lasco,  who  had  stood 
by  them  in  England  and  was  then  at  Frankfort, 
worshiping  with  his  Dutch  congregation  in  the 
same  church  with  the  French  and  the  English. 
At  any  rate  they  secured  the  harmonious  consent 
of  all  the  company  to  the  conditions,  and  in  testi- 
mony they  appointed  certain  representatives  to 
sign  the  confession,  which  the  minister,  doctor,  and 
elders  of  the  French  Church  had  already  signed. 
A  form  of  service  and  of  church  discipline  closely 
resembling  that  used  in  the  French  congregations 
was  also  drawn  up,  and  an  invitation  given  to  their 
countrymen  dispersed  in  other  cities  to  come  and 
share  their  privileges.  But  their  harmony  was 
disturbed  by  the  new  arrivals,  and  their  difficulties 
increased  apace,  till,  after  various  attempts  at  com- 
promise, the  more  advanced  members  of  the  com- 
pany were  outvoted,  and  sought  another  asylum 
where  they  might  hope  to  enjoy  the  forms  and  dis- 
cipline they  valued.  Through  the  special  favor  of 
Calvin,  they  found  this  at  Geneva.  The  congrega- 
tion they  had  left  behind,  with  consent  of  the  syn- 


under  Queen  Elizabeth.  35 

dies,  put  on  somewhat  more  of  the  "  face  of  an  Eng- 
lish Church,"  but  not  even  so  did  it  attain  to  peace, 
nor  did  it  ever  venture  to  introduce  the  surplice  or 
the  observance  of  kneeling  at  the  reception  of  the 
communion,  or  of  the  sign  of  the  cross  in  baptism, 
or  the  use  of  the  ring  in  marriage  ;  ^  and  when  the 
happier  days  they  sighed  for  came,  most  of  them 
at  first  sided  with  those  who  pleaded  for  a  con- 
tinuance of  liberty  in  such  matters  as  these. 

Those  happier  days  were  supposed  to  have 
dawned  in  November  1558,  when  Elizabeth  suc- 
ceeded to  her  sister's  throne.  Immediately  Pro- 
testants who  had  been  living  in  retirement  in 
their  own  country  or  in  exile  elsewhere  hast- 
ened to  London  and  paid  their  court  to  the  new 
sovereign.  All  were  received  with  more  or  less 
favor  and  encouraged  to  accept  employment  in 
the  reconstituted  Church,  save  some  of  those 
who  came  from  Geneva.  During  the  few  bright 
years  they  had  spent  there,  they  had  enjoyed  the 
friendship  and  protection  of  Calvin,  and  as  a  con- 
gregation had  been  left  in  a  great  measure  free  to 
follow  their  own  bent,  and  develop  their  own 
discipline  and  forms.  They  had  thought  of  the 
needs  of  others  besides  themselves,  and  by  the  pre- 
paration of  their  metrical  Psalter  and  new  version 

1  Original  Letters  of  English  Reformation,  p.  754  :  "  We  gave 
up  private  baptizing,  confirmation  of  children,  saints'  days,  kneel- 
ing at  the  holy  communion,  the  linen  surplices  and  crosses,  and 
other  things  of  like  character." — Cox  and  others  to  Calvin. 


2,6    Development  and  History  of  Puritanism 

of  the  Scriptures  in  their  native  tongue,  to  say  no- 
thing of  their  Book  of  Common  Order  and  trans- 
lation of  Calvin's  Catechism,  long  used  in  Scot- 
land, and  in  part  circulated  in  England  too,  they 
had  done  more  real  and  permanent  service  to  the 
cause  of  the  Reformation  in  their  native  land 
than  all  the  rest  of  the  exiles  then  on  the  Conti- 
nent. Geneva  was  in  their  eyes  "  such  a  school  of 
Christ  as  the  world  for  many  ages  had  not  seen," 
and  they  had  striven  by  their  lives  and  labors  to 
make  their  own  congregation  worthy  of  this 
school.  Their  efforts  had  been  appreciated  and 
acknowledged.  Their  ministers  Knox  and  Good- 
man, and  some  of  their  members,  had  had  the 
freedom  of  the  city  conferred  on  them,  and  at 
their  departure  had  intrusted  to  its  custody  that 
"  Livre  des  Anglois  "  which  is  the  earliest  register 
of  a  Puritan  church  and  is  still  preserved  with 
care  in  the  archives  of  the  city.  Knox,  however, 
while  there,  had  had  the  misfortune  to  publish  his 
treatise  "  On  the  Monstrous  Regiment  of  Women," 
and  Goodman  his  treatise,  "  How  Superior  Powers 
should  be  obeyed,"  ^  offences  which  a  Tudor  queen 
could  hardly  be  expected  to  overlook  or  forgive, 
and  the  offences  of  the  ministers  brought  the  flock 

^  Possibly  Bishop  Poynet's  treatise  "Of  Politique  power  and  of 
the  true  obedience  which  subjects  owe  to  kings  and  other  civil 
governors,"  reprinted  in  1642,  and  said  in  reprint  (E  154,  No. 
36)  to  have  been  first  published  in  1 556,  may  have  been  so  at 
Geneva,  where  he  was  then  residing. 


under   Qitccii  ElizabctJi.  37 

also  under  suspicion.  Knox  in  rcturnin<^  to  Scot- 
land was  not  allowed  to  set  foot  on  English  soil, 
and  all  his  efforts  to  explain  were  haughtily  re- 
jected. Goodman  for  a  time  was  so  repulsed  that 
he  deemed  it  best  to  yield  to  the  request  of  his 
former  colleague  and  aid  him  in  his  great  work 
in  Scotland ;  ^  and  other  members  of  the  congre- 
gation had  difficulty  in  making  their  peace. 

Elizabeth,  the  new  queen,  was  happily  sur- 
rounded by  wise  and  faithful  counselors  who 
made  her  reign  illustrious  and  prosperous,  and 
controlled  its  policy  in  great  crises;  yet,  as  one 
determined  to  rule  as  well  as  reign,  she  insisted 
often  on  settling  important  matters  according  to 
her  own  arbitrary  will  and  without  regard  to  the 
wishes  of  her  Council  or  her  Parliament.  In  par- 
ticular she  took  into  her  own  hands  from  the  first 
the  reformation  of  the  Church  and  the  regulation 

^  Goodman  was  a  man  of  superior  abilities  and  extensive  learn- 
ing. His  book  was  highly  esteemed  by  Milton  and  other  patriots 
in  the  following  century,  and  will  not  be  thought  meanly  of  yet  by 
any  unprejudiced  reader.  Having  been  Divinity  Reader  at  Oxford 
in  1553,  (ioodman  was  deemed  the  fittest  person  to  be  made  min- 
ister at  St.  Andrews  in  1560.  But  his  predecessor,  who  had  been 
vicar  before  the  Reformation,  and  had  acted  as  minister  in  1559- 
60,  was  allowed  to  carry  the  emoluments  of  his  vicarage  with  him 
to  Aberdeen,  and  Goodman,  after  four  or  five  years'  faithful  ser- 
vice, failing  to  secure  an  adequate  maintenance,  returned  to  Eng- 
land. There  he  was  exposed  to  many  hardships,  and  had  to  make 
a  sort  of  recantation  of  his  political  sentiments.  He  survived  till 
1602,  and  was  held  in  great  esteem  even  outside  the  Puritan  circle. 
Ussher  long  treasured  and  repeated  the  pious  sayings  he  had  heard 
from  him  on  his  deathbed. 


38    Development  and  History  of  Pnritanism 

of  its  worship  almost  with  as  much  imperiousness 
as  her  father  had  done.  While  scrupling  to  as- 
sume the  title  of  "  Supreme  Head  on  earth,  under 
Christ,  of  the  Church  of  England,"  she  assumed 
and  exercised  without  scruple,  all  the  power  which 
the  title  was  held  to  imply.  While  professedly 
adopting  the  second  Prayer  Book  of  her  brother, 
she  imported  into  it  that  Ornaments  rubric  from 
his  earlier  Book,  which  was  to  work  such  woe  in 
her  day,  and  has  caused  such  trouble  even  in  ours. 
As  already  mentioned,  she  prefixed  words  to  those 
enjoined  in  it  to  be  used  at  the  distribution  of  the 
elements  in  the  Lord's  Supper  which  were  meant 
to  make  it  possible  even  for  a  Romanist  to  com- 
municate, and  she  excluded  that  rubric  put  in 
originally  in  deference  to  the  scruples  of  Knox 
and  a  Lasco  which  was  the  most  Protestant  thing 
in  the  book.  She  prevailed  on  Parliament  when 
passing  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  to  recognize  her 
right  to  add,  to  those  already  appointed,  such 
further  rites  and  ceremonies  as  she  should  judge 
to  be  for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  honor  of  re- 
ligion ;  and  had  she  found  the  old  bishops  as  com- 
pliant as  her  father  had  done,  she  might  have  been 
led  to  use  this  right  in  such  a  way  as  might  grat- 
ify them  in  minor  things  rather  than  their  oppo- 
nents. With  all  her  good  and  noble  qualities  (and 
they  were  man\')  she  was  a  Tudor  every  inch,  and 
less  disposed  to  yield  one  jot  of  her  prerogative 


wida''   Qticcii  Elizabeth,  39 

in  matters  ecclesiastical  than  in  matters  civil.  She 
thought  her  subjects  should  loyally  submit  to  the 
injunctions  of  their  sovereign,  in  regard  to  the 
former  as  fully  as  to  the  latter.  Even  when  the 
dangers,  which  at  first  threatened- her  and  might 
have  palliated  if  they  could  not  justify  her  early 
imperiousness,  were  passed,  she  could  still  play  the 
despot,  and  endeavor  by  sheer  force  to  stamp  out 
intensely  earnest  convictions,  which,  more  gently 
dealt  with  and  more  lovingly  guided,  would  have 
been  a  strength  to  her  throne  and  to  the  institu- 
tions of  the  land.  She  had  a  natural  predilection 
for  the  mongrel  faith  and  worship  of  her  father's 
later  years,  a  fondness  for  external  pomp  and  sym- 
bolism which  her  most  favored  prelates  at  times 
found  it  hard  to  wink  at — impossible  to  justify, 
and  but  little  sympathy  with  the  practical  side  of 
Puritanism  and  with  that  inner  experience  and 
holy  self-denying  life  which  were  its  crown  and 
glory.  She  looked  with  ill-concealed  dislike  on 
the  marriage  of  the  clergy,  and  never  repealed  her 
sister's  Act  against  it.  Her  first  purpose  seems 
to  have  been  to  retain  the  Marian  bishops  in 
office  (if  they  had  consented  to  turn  with  the  tide 
once  more  and  take  the  oaths  of  allegiance  and 
supremacy),  and  only  to  fill  up  the  vacant  sees 
with  men  of  decided  Protestant  convictions.  But 
by  the  refusal  of  these  bishops  to  take  the  oath  of 
supremacy  and  conform  to  the  new  order,  she  was 


40    Development  and  History  of  Puritanism 

obliged  to  fall  back  on  the  Protestant  bishops  who 
had  resigned  or  been  dispossessed  in  the  begin- 
ning of  her  sister's  reign,  and  on  the  men  who  had 
identified  themselves  with  the  reforming  party  in 
her  brother's  time,  and  who  had  had  their  convic- 
tions matured  in  retirement  or  in  exile. 

It  is  difficult  to  believe,  notwithstanding  asser- 
tions to  the  contrary  by  the  High  Church  biogra- 
pher of  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury,  that  they 
had  not  ample  assurance  given  them  that  the 
Church  in  which  they  were  asked  to  serve  was 
meant  to  be  the  restoration  of  that  of  King  Ed- 
ward's time,'  and  some  encouragement  to  hope 
that  the  things  they  would  rather  have  had  away 
were  continued  merely  for  reasons  of  state  policy, 
and  might  (as  was  professed  by  him),  if  borne 
with  for  the  time,  be  ultimately  abandoned  or 
modified.  In  fact,  they  had  a  right  to  regard  the 
acceptance  of  Coverdale's  services  without  the 
episcopal  habits,  at  the  consecration  of  Archbishop 
Parker,  as  a  pledge  not  only  that  the  same  indul- 

1  Lee  in  his  recent  work,  The  Church  under  Queen  Elizabeth, 
admits  this  frankly  : — "  Bishops  Pilkington,  Sandys,  Grindal,  Over- 
ton, Meyrick,  Bale,  Bullingham,  and  Parkhurst  were  each  and  all 
thoroughly  agreed  in  their  principles  and  course  of  action ;  and  in 
substituting  the  new  religion  which  had  been  set  up  for  the  old 
one,  which  had  been  deliberately  and  duly  abolished  by  Parlia- 
ment, .  .  .  they  were  only  carrying  out  the  obvious  and  avowed 
intentions  of  those  state  officials  who  had  placed  them  in  high 
ecclesiastical  positions  expressly  to  carry  out  the  changes  .... 
resolved  upon." — Vol.  i.  p.  272. 


under   Queen  ElizabctJi.  41 

gence  would  be  extended  to  him  in  the  future  but 
also  that  the  practical  toleration  they  had  them- 
selves enjoyed  in  King  Edward's  days  would  not 
be  denied  them  again.  The  great  bulk  of  the 
Marian  clergy  abandoned  their  former  bishops  and 
conformed  externally  to  the  new  order  of  things, 
and  if  they,  Romanist  in  all  but  the  name,  were  to 
be  continued  and  borne  with,  that  the  nation 
might  be  kept  united  in  one  comprehensive 
Church,  much  more  surely  might  those  who  were 
ministers  in  Edward's  days,  and  were  seeking  only 
what  was  practically  conceded  then, — the  men 
who  were  heartily  attached  to  the  new  order  of 
things,  and  had  the  learning,  the  zeal,  the  earnest 
Christian  life,  and  the  preaching  abilities  needed 
to  insure  among  the  masses  an  intelligent  accept- 
ance of  this  new  order, — much  more  surely  had 
they  a  right  to  expect  that  reasonable  concessions 
should  be  made  to  them,  and  a  modus  vivcndi  be 
allowed  them,  even  if,  in  the  interest  of  union 
amonp;  Eno-lishmen,  the  obnoxious  ceremonies 
were  not  entirely  to  be  removed. 

Various  efforts  were  made  in  the  first  Convoca- 
tion, which  assembled  after  the  reconstitution  of 
the  Church,  formally  to  secure  this,^  and  for  a  few 

1  It  was  only  by  a  single  vote,  and  that  a  proxy,  that  in  1 562 
the  Lower  House  of  Convocation  rejected  proposals  which  would 
probably  have  done  this  : — "  That  in  baptism  the  cross  may  be 
omitted,  .  .  .  that  the  order  of  kneeling  (at  the  comnuinion)  may 
be  left  to  the  discretion  of  the  ordinary,  .  .  .  that  it  be  sutiicient 


42    Development  and  History  of  Piuntanisui 

years  it  seems  at  least  to  have  been  practically 
conceded.  We  cannot  suppose  that  those  bishops 
who  had  pleaded  so  strongly  as  Grindal,  Jewell, 
Horn,  and  Parkhurst  had  done  to  have  these 
stumbling-blocks  taken  out  of  the  way,  would  be 
at  all  disposed  to  press  hardly  on  scrupling  breth- 
ren, or  that  even  Archbishop  Parker,  though  not 
so  kindly  befriending  them,  would  of  his  own 
accord  have  left  his  quiet  antiquarian  researches 
and  other  much-loved  studies  to  enter  into  conflict 
with  them.  We  cannot  suppose  that  Elizabeth's 
wise  counselors,  who  saw  the  necessity  of  encour- 
aging the  Dutch  and  the  Huguenots  in  their 
struggles,  as  well  as  of  standing  by  the  Protestants 
of  Scotland  though  they  would  "  remit  nothing  of 
that  they  had  received  from  Geneva,"  could  be  so 
blind  to  their  true  interests  at  home,  as  for  the 
sake  of  tippit  or  surplice,  cross  or  ring,  to  cut  off 
the  right  arm  of  their  strength.^     But  the  queen 

for  the  minister  .  .  .  (once)  to  wear  a  surplice.  .  .  .  That  the  use 
of  organs  be  removed." — Strype's  Annah,  vol.  i.  pp.  Z?)^-},Z9. 

1  ''  The  great  object  of  Elizabeth's  ministers  .  .  .  was  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  Protestant  religion,  to  which  all  ceremonies  of  the 
Church  and  even  its  form  of  discipline  were  subordinate.  An  in- 
different passiveness  among  the  people,  a  humble  trust  in  authority, 
however  desirable  in  the  eyes  of  churchmen,  was  not  the  temper 
which  would  ,  .  .  have  quelled  the  generous  ardor  of  the  Catholic 
gentry  on  the  queen's  decease ;  .  .  .  but  every  abhorrer  of  cere- 
monies, every  rejector  of  prelatical  authority  might  be  trusted  as 
Protestant  to  the  heart's  core,  whose  sword  would  be  as  ready  as 
his  tongue  to  withstand  idolatry." — Hallam's  Constitutional  His- 
tory of  England,  vol.  i.  pp.  195,  196, 


undcj^   Queen  Elizabeth.  43 

either  of  her  native  willfulness,  or  from  jealousy  of 
their  increasing  influence  with  the  citizens  of  Lon- 
don and  the  tendency  of  their  opinions  in  the 
political  sphere,  or  at  the  instigation  of  some 
busybody  who  had  a  grudge  against  them,  or 
sought  by  unworthy  means  to  gain  her  favor,  was 
at  length  unfortunately  persuaded  to  put  forth  her 
authority  against  them  and  to  enjoin  the  bishops 
to  restrain  or  deprive  them.  She  knew  it  was  not 
a  popular  business,  and  she  would  rather  the  odium 
of  it  should  light  on  them  than  on  herself  But  in 
case  of  need  she  was  always  ready  to  give  help, 
and,  once  committed  to  a  side,  could  never  again 
be  brought  to  treat  them  with  kindness  and  for- 
bearance, and  frankly  to  utilize  their  acknowledged 
gifts  for  the  preaching  of  the  gospel  and  advance- 
ment of  Christian  knowledge  and  godly  living 
among  the  uninstructed  masses  of  her  people. 
She  became  only  the  more  peremptory,  the  more 
their  influence  became  apparent,  and  the  sym- 
pathies of  others  were  drawn  forth  toward  them, 
and  a  love  for  more  popular  control  in  affairs  of 
government  began  to  be  developed — the  more 
determined  to  uphold  her  prerogative  and  to 
humble  and  crush  them,  even  if  in  so  doing  much 
of  the  earnest  life  of  the  Church  had  to  be  crushed 
out,  many  of  the  most  effective  preachers  to  be 
silenced,  and  many  of  the  firmest  supporters  of 
her  throne  had  to  be  maltreated  or  discredited. 


44   Development  and  History  of  Pttritanism 

Time  will  not  admit  of  my  entering  much  into 
details  as  to  the  melancholy  blunders,  merciless  op- 
pression, and  savage  cruelties  which  characterized 
her  ecclesiastical  administration  in  its  relation  to  the 
Puritans.  That  has  been  done  pretty  fully  by 
Dr.  Hetherington  in  the  introductory  chapters  of 
his  History  of  the  Westminster  Assembly,  and  still 
more  fully  and  impartially  by  Mr.  Marsden  in  his 
History  of  the  Early  Puritans,  and  by  some  of  our 
recent  secular  historians,  as  well  as  by  Neale  and 
other  Puritan  writers  in  earlier  times.  To  certain 
prominent  occurrences  I  must  briefly  refer,  as  the 
ultimate  shape  and  direction  of  the  Puritan  strug- 
gle was  largely  determined  by  them. 

The  returned  exiles  who  accepted  bishoprics 
and  other  high  dignities,  were,  as  already  men- 
tioned, almost  all  in  favor  of  concessions  being 
made  to  the  scruples  of  the  Puritans,  if  not  even 
anxious  for  the  entire  removal  of  the  rites  and 
ornaments  to  which  they  objected;  and  perhaps 
one  of  the  greatest  services  rendered  by  the 
Parker  Society  in  our  own  day  has  been  the  tran- 
scription and  publication  of  their  correspondence 
with  Bullinger  and  other  Continental  reformers, 
in  which  these  facts  are  so  clearly  brought  out. 
But  they  hesitated  to  insist  on  obtaining  such  con- 
cessions before  accepting  office,  when  firmness  on 
their  part  might  possibly  have  secured  them,  and 
they  never  were  in  a  condition  to  insist  on  them 


under   Queen  Elizabeth.  45 

afterward.  Nay,  against  their  own  better  judg- 
ment and  wishes,  some  of  them  were  forced  on 
to  deal  harshly  with  brethren  whom  they  loved, 
and  on  whom  they  knew  they  must  chiefly  rel)- 
to  give  life  and  vigor  to  the  new  Church,  and  to 
defend  and  propagate  among  the  ignorant  and 
careless  that  reformed  faith  which  they,  not  less 
than  these  brethren,  held  dear.  "  Oxford  had  but 
three  preachers  in  1563,  and  they  were  chief  men 
among  the  Puritans.  The  case  of  Cambridge  was 
very  similar;"^  and  in  fact  throughout  the  king- 
dom generally  it  was  the  same.  It  was  to  them 
the  queen  and  her  counselors  must  look  for  the 
earnest  and  resolute  defence  of  their  common 
faith,  in  the  only  way  in  which  access  could  be 
got  for  it  to  the  minds  of  the  unreading  masses. 
It  was  to  them  she  must  look  for  the  vigorous 
defence  of  her  own  rights  against  Pope  and  Stuart 
and  all  opponents.  It  was  not  by  homilies  on  the 
peril  of  idolatry  or  the  sin  of  willful  rebellion,  life- 
lessly drawled  out  by  men  who  had  changed  from 
side  to  side  and  had  no  very  deep  convictions 
either  way,  that  the  crisis  could  be  met,  and  the 
more  intelligent  of  the  people  roused  to  the  seri- 
ousness of  the  issue. 

What  Froude  has  said  of  Knox^  may  be  said 
in  a  measure  of  his  Puritan  brethren  in  P^ngland  : 
that  they  saved    Elizabeth's  throne  and  secured 

^  Marsden,  pp.  loo,  lor.      ^  short  Studies,  1867,  vol.  i.  p.  168. 


4-6    Development  mid  History  of  Puritanism 

the  triumph  of  Protestantism  in  Britain,  in  spite 
of  herself,  and  of  all  her  caprice  and  cruelty 
toward  them.  The  men  who  at  first  presented 
themselves  for  ordination  in  the  restored  Church 
were  generally  men  of  mean  condition  and  miser- 
ably qualified  for  the  sacred  offices  to  which  they 
aspired,  and  so  limited  was  the  supply,  even  of 
such  men,  that  many  churches  were  left  without 
ministers  for  a  time,  or  consigned  to  the  charge 
of  men  of  doubtful  ordination  ^  as  well  as  deficient 
education.  Ecclesiastical  lands  and  revenues  in 
several  cases  were  appropriated  by  the  queen,  in 
several  were  made  over  to  her  courtiers ;  bishop- 
rics were  kept  vacant — Ely  and  Oxford  for  about 
twenty  years.  Several  of  those  in  high  ecclesias- 
tical offices  showed  more  concern  to  enrich  them- 
selves and  their  families,  than  to  aid  in  supple- 
menting confessedly  inadequate  livings,  or  to 
guard  against  further  alienation  and  abuse.  The 
incumbents  of  Queen  Mary's  days,  who  to  so 
large  an  extent  had  nominally  submitted  to  the 
new  regime,  were  too  often  either  popishly  affected 
or  grossly  ignorant — dead  to  the  living  meaning 
of  the  changes  which  had  been  made,  or  unable 
to  preach,  at  times  even  to  read,  in  an  edifying 
and   impressive    manner — clinging,    as    has   been 

^  Lee  often  refers  to  this,  and  holds  that  many  of  the  monks  and 
friars  who  conformed  and  got  benefices,  if  in  orders  at  all,  were 
only  in  minor  orders — lectores,  acolyti,  etc.  So  probably  were 
many  of  those  admitted  as  Readers  in  Scotland. 


under   Queen  Elizabeth.  47 

said,  to  the  old  forms,  which  they  could  repeat  by 
rote,  rather  than  taking  the  trouble  of  making 
themselves  familiar  with  the  new — in  some  cases 
using  the  breviary  or  the  missal  in  private,  and 
the  Anglican  liturgy  in  public — oft  but  able  to 
read  the  prescribed  English  prayers  and  homilies, 
and  keep  up  a  certain  routine  of  service,  and  sel- 
dom able  to  speak  any  **  word  of  exhortation  " 
fitted  to  touch  the  hearts  of  their  people,  or  to 
exercise  a  permanent  influence  for  good  among 
them.  The  returned  exiles  had  in  most  cases  a 
respectable  amount  of  learning,  and  Christian  ex- 
perience, and  the  ability  and  will  to  put  both  to 
use  in  popular  preaching  and  more  didactic  argu- 
ment in  defence  of  the  Reformed  faith ;  and  at 
first  they  had  no  great  cause  to  complain  that 
their  claims  were  overlooked.  Their  metrical 
Psalter  was  allowed  to  be  sung  before  and  after 
prayers  and  sermons,  and  their  translation  of  the 
Bible,  without  formal  allowance,  was  largely  cir- 
culated and  often  reprinted,  and  certain  prayers 
and  the  Confession  in  their  Book  of  Common 
Order  were  generally  appended  to  the  Psalter  and 
possibly  used  in  the  pulpit  though  not  in  the 
reading-desk.  Their  earnest  labors  and  solid 
learning,  wisely  and  generously  directed,  and 
their  scruples  reasonably  yielded  to  or  winked  at, 
would  with  God's  blessing  have  sufficed  in  a  single 
generation  to  change  the  face  of  England,  and  make 


48    Development  and  History  of  Pitritajiism 

the  common  people  not  less  educated  and  zealously 
Protestant  than  the  people  of  still  ruder  Scotland 
became.  But  those  in  power  determined  to  put 
uniformity  and  submission  to  rigid  law  or  to  arbi- 
trary will  in  the  forefront,  and  to  exalt  prerogative 
above  all  limitations  of  regulated  freedom,  and 
the  benefits  of  a  mechanical  routine  above  the 
blessing  of  a  living  active  ministry  and  a  moral, 
intelligent,  grave,  and  deeply  earnest  people. 

It  was  in  the  year  1564-5  that  the  first  lament- 
able attempt  was  made  to  enforce  a  rigid  uni- 
formity, and,  by  prerogative  royal,  exact  subscrip- 
tion to  it  from  the  scrupling  Puritans,  who  till  then 
had  been  generously  treated  or  grumblingly  tole- 
rated. The  peremptory  mandate  requiring  them  to 
give  this  subscription  issued  from  the  sovereign 
herself;  but  it  was  carried  out,  if  with  reluctance  yet 
with  submission,  by  several  of  the  prelates,  and 
especially  by  Parker,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,^ 

^  Historians  are  not  agreed  how  far  she,  and  how  far  Parker 
was,  in  the  first  instance,  to  blame  for  the  earher  proceedings 
against  then-..  I  have  no  doubt  the  real  explanation  is  that  given 
above,  that  the  queen  wished  and  urged  him  to  proceed,  just  as  she 
encouraged  Aylmer's  action  against  Cartwright,  but  that  (as  in  that 
cnse)  she  wished  him  to  take  the  onus  on  himself.  No  doubt  the 
bishops,  as  well  as  she,  thought  that  firmness  and  a  little  severity 
was  all  that  was  needed  to  crush  the  party,  and  instead  of  retracing 
their  steps  when  they  found  they  were  mistaken,  they  exaggerated 
the  dangers  of  a  policy  of  concession,  and  clamored  for  one  of 
repression.  Thus,  ere  many  years  had  passed,  we  find  Sandys 
writing  to  the  Privy  Council  in  the  following  excited  terms  ;  "  The 
city  will  never  be  quiet  till  these  authors  of  sedition,  who  are  now 


under   Qiceen  Elizabeth.  49 

and  Grindal,  Bishop  of  London,  in  whose  diocese 
many  of  the  leading  Puritans  were  settled  and  by 
consistent  Christian  living,  as  well  as  by  efficient 
pastoral  work,  were  commending  themselves  and 
their  cause  to  the  popular  sympathy.  Sampson, 
Humphreys,  Lever,  and  many  others — above  thirty 
in  all — several  of  the  best,  as  the  Archbishop  him- 
self acknowledged,  appeared  and  consented  to  be 
suspended  or  deposed  rather  than  subscribe  to 
observe  the  proposed  uniformity.  Not  a  few 
sought  to  delay  the  evil  day  by  not  appearing. 
The  noble-hearted  Foxe,  to  whom  Protestant 
England  owes  so  much,  is  reported  to  have  pulled 
out  his  Greek  Testament  and  said,  **  To  this  only 
will  I  subscribe.  I  have  but  a  humble  prebend  in 
the  Church,  and  if  you  take  it  from  me,  much 
good  may  it  do  you."  He  seems  to  have  been 
borne  with ;  but  even  good  Father  Coverdale  who, 
as  Grindal  before,  when  pleading  for  his  promo- 
tion, had  said,  "  ante  nos  omnes  in  Christo  fuit," 
could  not  be  spared,  though  the  plague  had  just 
spared  him.  After  little  more  than  a  year's  enjoy- 
ment of  his  humble  benefice  of  St.  Magnus  Rectory, 
he  had  to   retire  once    more  into  obscurity   and 

esteemed  as  gods  ...  be  far  removed  from  the  city.  The  people 
resort  to  them  as  in  popery  they  were  wont  to  run  on  pilgrimages. 
...  A  sharp  letter  from  her  Majesty  would  cut  the  courage  of 
these  men.  Good  my  Lords,  for  the  love  you  bear  to  llie  Church 
of  Christ,  resist  the  tumultuous  enterprises  of  these  newfangled 
men." 


50    Development  and  History  of  Puritanism 

privation.  He  was  reverenced  and  followed  in 
London,  and,  by  his  influence,  was  putting  the 
city  out  of  sympathy  with  the  court,  and  must,  to 
use  the  unfeeling-  words  of  her  Majesty  about 
another,  be  fitted  for  heaven,  "  but  walk  thither 
without  staff  or  mantle."  He  was  left  in  his  extreme 
old  age  *'  without  stay  of  living,  '  pauper  et  pere- 
grinus,'  "  in  the  land  which  gave  him  birth,  and 
which  he  had  labored  so  hard  to  enrich  with  the 
true  riches  of  God's  Word  in  his  native  tongue. 

Such  measures  once  taken,  further  trouble  arose, 
first  about  private  meetings  for  worship  in  London, 
at  which  Knox's  Book  of  Common  Order  was 
used  instead  of  the  Liturgy,  and  then  in  connec- 
tion with  the  more  public  meetings  known  as 
"  the  prophesyings."  These  were  gatherings  of 
ministers  and  pious  laymen  for  the  study  and 
exposition  of  the  Scriptures,  and  in  the  great 
dearth  there  then  was  of  qualified  preachers  they 
were  of  much  service  to  many,  both  in  stimulating 
them  to  the  study  of  the  Word  of  God,  and  in 
training  them  to  expound  it  with  readiness  and 
accuracy.  They  had  been  held  with  profit  in  the 
Dutch  and  French  churches  in  London,  when 
under  the  charge  of  a  Lasco,  and  had  probably 
been  resumed  by  them  on  their  return  from  the 
Continent.  At  the  accession  of  Elizabeth  they 
were  a  standing  institution  at  Zi^irich  as  well  as  at 
Geneva,  and  v/ere  introduced  with  much   benefit 


under   Queen  Elizabeth.  51 

into  Scotland  by  Knox,  soon  after  1560.  By  the 
commencement  of  the  following  decade  they  ap- 
pear to  have  found  their  way  into  various  parts  of 
England.  Several  bishops  who  were  earnest  for 
the  more  thorough  reformation  of  their  dioceses/ 
finding  them  useful  in  quickening  zeal  for  the 
reformed  faith,  and  increasing  the  number  of 
qualified  preachers,  gave  them  their  countenance, 
and  endeavored,  by  prudent  regulations,  to  avert 
or  restrain  any  excesses  to  which,  in  incautious 
hands,  they  might  be  liable.  They  were  especially 
dear  to  Grindal,  who  had  by  1 576  succeeded  Parker 
in  the  primacy.  He  was  a  thorough  Protestant 
himself  and  anxious  for  the  continuance  of  a 
thoroughly  Protestant  ministry,  and  willing  to 
employ  any  means  which  had  been  found  useful 
in  training  men  for  it  elsewhere.  But  the  queen, 
either  taking  umbrage  at  the  meetings  having  been 
set  up  without  her  sanction,  or  dreading  the  effect 
they  might  have  in  promoting  discussion,  encour- 
aging greater  liberty  in  the  expression  of  opinion, 
and  fostering  a  desire  for  a  more  popular  organ- 
ization either  in  the  church  or  state,  determined 
rigorously  to  suppress  them.  She  spoke  slightingly 
of  the   need  of  preachers,  affirming   that  two  or 

^  The  sad  complaints  of  several  of  these  bishops  as  to  the  state 
of  their  dioceses,  from  the  ignorance  of  the  people,  and  their  dis- 
like of  the  new  regime,  are  given  from  State  Papers  and  other  con- 
temporary sources,  by  Lee,  vol.  i,  ch.  iv. 


5  2    Development  and  History  of  Puritanism 

three  were  enough  for  a  whole  county,  and  that 
the  common  people  were  far  better  not  to  have 
their  stolid  quiet  disturbed  by  such  over-zealous 
instructors.  She  peremptorily  commanded  him 
to  issue  formal  orders  for  the  suppression  of  the 
obnoxious  meetings.  The  archbishop  nobly  re- 
monstrated against  the  suppression  of  an  institu- 
tion which,  he  was  satisfied,  had  done  much  good, 
and  might  easily  be  purged  of  any  abuses  which, 
through  the  infirmity  of  men,  may  have  arisen 
to  mar  the  good  it  did.  But  he  remonstrated  in 
vain.  The  queen  not  only  disregarded  his  cour- 
ageous and  earnest  pleading,  but  carried  her  dis- 
pleasure so  far  as  to  suspend  him  from  his  high 
office,  and  confine  him  as  a  prisoner  to  his  own 
house.  It  is  said  that,  but  for  the  unpopularity 
of  the  measure,  she  would  have  proceeded  to 
deprive  him  altogether.  He  never  fully  regained 
the  favor  of  his  sovereign,  with  whom  he  had  as 
boldly  and  faithfully  remonstrated,  as  became  the 
high  office  he  held.  But  it  is  said  that,  when  he 
was  broken  down  by  grief  and  the  infirmities  of 
old  age,  and  bereft  of  sight,  she  relented  some- 
what and  sent  him  a  kindly  message,  and  that  he 
made  such  acknowledgment  as  a  Christian  bishop 
could  honorably  make.  His  virtues  and  misfor- 
tunes made  him  beloved  and  revered  by  his  con- 
temporaries, caused  his  name  to  be  embalmed  in 
the  verse  of  the  immortal  Spenser,  and  have  se- 


luidcr   Queen  Elizabeth.  53 

cured  for  him  a  word  of  warm  commendation  from 
the  High  Church  biographer  of  the  Archbishops 
of  Canterbury,  who  is  never  more  sparing  of  his 
praise  than  to  prelates  of  the  Evangelical  school, 
to  which  Grindal  belonged. 

Soon  after  the  commencement  of  the  prophesy- 
ings,  the  more  thorough-going  Puritans  who  had 
been  led  on  to  substantially  presbyterian  opinions, 
but  discouraged  by  friends  abroad  and  debarred 
by  the  authorities  at  home  from  overtly  seceding 
from  the  national  church,  began  to  hold  private 
meetings  for  mutual  conference  and  prayer,  and 
possibly  also  for  the  exercise  of  discipline  over 
those  who  voluntarily  joined  their  associations 
and  submitted  to  their  guidance.  It  is  even  said 
that  a  presbytery  was  formed  at  Wandsworth  in 
Surrey,  wherein  eleven  lay-elders  were  associated 
with  the  lecturer  of  that  congregation  and  certain 
leading  Puritan  clergymen.  But  if  this  was  really 
a  formal  presbytery,  it  is  evident  that  it  was  what 
was  then  called  the  lesser  presbytery  or  session, 
not  the  greater  presbytery  or  classis  to  which  the 
name  is  now  usually  restricted.  It  is  more  cer- 
tain that  when  Cartwright,  the  redoubted  leader 
of  this  school  of  Puritans,  was  arrested  in  1585 
and  his  study  searched,  a  copy  was  found  of  a 
Directory  for  church-government,  which  made 
provision  for  synods,  provincial  and  national,  as 
well  as  for  presbyteries,  greater  and  lesser.    This, 


54    Development  and  History  of  Pnintanisni 

according  to  some  authorities,  had  been  subscribed 
by  about  500  Puritans  of  this  school,  and,  for 
some  years,  as  I  said,  had,  to  a  certain  extent, 
been  carried  out,  and  a  church  within  the  church^ 
virtually  formed.  The  book  was  republished  in 
1644,  and  so  was  known  and  consulted  by  the 
Westminster  divines;  and  it  has  been  reprinted 
in  our  own  day  by  Principal  Lorimer.  It  bears 
considerable  resemblance  to  the  famous  Ordinances 
of  Calvin  and  the  Second  Book  of  Discipline  of 
the  Scottish  church,  but  it  is  more  explicit  in  its 
directions  as  to  preaching,  and  the  forms  of  wor- 
ship. 

I  must  pass  over  with  bare  mention  the  harsh 
usage  meted  out  to  the  great  Puritan  leader^  by 

1  Ecclesiola  in  ecclesia.  Their  synods  are  said  to  have  met  in 
London,  Oxford,  Cambridge,  Warwick,  Northampton,  etc. 

2  Thomas  Cartwright,  B.  D.,  first  Margaret  Professor  of  Di- 
vinity, and  one  of  the  preachers  in  the  University  Church  at 
Cambridge,  where  his  influence  and  example  probably  led  to  that 
outbreak  of  Puritanism  on  the  part  of  the  young  men,  which  some 
suppose  first  roused  the  queen  against  its  advocates.  He  was 
harshly  expelled  the  University,  and  had  twice  to  seek  shelter 
abroad  from  the  cruel  usage  he  experienced  at  home.  In  his  old 
age  he  was  allowed,  though  not  without  occasional  restraint  and 
even  imprisonment,  to  hold  the  chaplaincy  of  the  hospital  at  War- 
wick. He  was  an  able  disputant,  an  eloquent  preacher,  "  a  pure 
Latinist,  an  accurate  Grecian,  an  exact  Hebrean,"  a  scholar  so 
learned  that  Beza  said  he  did  not  think  the  sun  shone  on  one  more 
so,  according  to  Marsden  "the  Hooker  of  nonconformity,  his 
equal  in  acuteness  though  not  in  penetration  ;  in  eloquence,  though 
not  in  learning,  his  superior ;  his  inferior  perhaps  only  in  profound 
dexterity  and  skill  in  argument  mingled  with  an  awful  reverence 
for  truth."     See  also  Appendix,  Note  B. 


under   Qitccn  Elizabeth,  55 

Whitgift  in  his  early  days,  and  by  Aylnicr  in  his 
later,  the  ungenerous  treatment  of  Travers,  and 
the  pitiless  oppression  of  many  "  godly  ministers," 
when,  on  Whitgift's  accession  to  the  primacy,  the 
Court  of  High  Commission  was  reconstituted  and 
more  extensive  powers  were  intrusted  to  it,  and  a 
series  of  interrogatories  was  devised  for  extorting 
a  confession  from  the  accused,  which  even  Cecil 
pronounced  to  be  worthy  of  the  Inquisition  itself 
I  must  pass  over  the  harsh  imprisonment  of  Brown 
and  other  extreme  Puritans  of  the  Independent 
school — the  tyrannical  proceedings  of  the  Court 
of  Star-Chamber  against  the  supposed  authors  of 
the  satirical  Marprelate  Tracts,  and  the  cruel  sen- 
tences on  Penry  and  Udal.  Neither  can  I  dwell 
on  the  illegal  restraint  of  the  freedom  of  discussion 
on  ecclesiastical  affairs  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
in  various  Parliaments,  from  1571  downward,  and 
the  noble  stand  made  in  behalf  of  forbearance 
and  healing  measures  by  Wentworth,  Strickland, 
and  other  patriots  in  that  House — the  worthy  pre- 
cursors of  Pym  and  Hampden  in  the  following 
century.  Nor  finally  shall  I  advert  to  the  doc- 
trinal disputes  which  began  to  be  raised  before 
the  close  of  this  reign  till  I  come,  in  a  subsequent 
lecture,  to  treat  of  the  history  and  development 
of  doctrine  more  expressly. 

It  was  indeed  a  policy  of  stamping  out  which 
was    now    initiated   by  the    queen   with   the   aid 


56    DcvclopDicnt  and  History  of  Pm^itanism 

of  despotic  Courts  of  Star-Chamber  and  High 
Commission  ;  and  with  singular  disregard  of  the 
feeb'ngs  and  convictions  of  many  true-hearted 
patriots  and  accomplished  Christian  scholars,  it 
was  attempted  to  be  remorselessly  carried  out. 
But  the  attempt  failed  as  disastrously  as  it  has 
generally  done  where  authority  and  prerogative 
have  set  themselves  against  deep  and  earnest 
convictions.  Many  who  had  not  the  courage  at 
first  openly  to  avow  it,  secretly  sympathized  with 
the  patriots  and  the  Puritans,  and,  in  time,  were 
emboldened  to  confess  it.  By  their  noble  bearing 
under  oppression  and  tyranny,  "  men  were  led  to 
examine  the  foundations  of  the  power  by  which 
they  were  so  cruelly  oppressed.  The  influence  of 
education  and  early  attachment  was  thus  counter- 
acted, until  at  length  a  determination  was  avowed 
to  overturn  a  system  whose  reformation  only  had 
previously  been  sought."  They  were  forced  to 
seek  outside  the  church  what  they  were  refused 
within,  and,  in  the  end,  to  let  loose  over  the  land 
as  a  devastating  flood  those  waters  which,  had 
proper  channels  been  opened  for  them,  would  have 
flowed  on  in  them  to  revivify  and  transform  the 
old  church,  and  make  its  parched  wastes  "  rejoice 
and  blossom  as  the  rose."  "  Little  as  they  thought 
what  the  consequences  of  their  acts  would  be, 
Elizabeth  and  Whitgift,  James  and  Bancroft,"  as 
Rawson    Gardiner    says,    "  by  making   a    schism 


under   Queen  Elizabeth.  57 

inevitable,    were   the    true    fathers    of    Protestant 
dissent." 

Occasionally  guided  by  considerations  of  state 
policy  or  by  desire  to  avoid  unpopularity,  or 
yielding  to  the  remonstrances  of  her  patriotic 
councilors  in  favor  of  particular  individuals,  be- 
longing to  the  party,  who  had  been  imprisoned  or 
deprived,  Elizabeth  may  have  forborne  to  press 
hard  on  them.  But  ever  and  anon  new  occasion 
was  found  for  restraining  and  gagging  the  more 
obnoxious,  whether  they  sought  shelter  within  or 
toleration  without  the  church,  whether  they  sought 
minor  changes  or  more  important  reforms  in  its 
constitution,  whether  they  advocated  these  in  their 
sermons,  or  through  the  press,  or  through  the 
instrumentality  of  friends  in  Parliament.  Even 
the  archbishop,  less  averse  to  the  repulsive  task 
than  some  of  his  brethren,  failed  at  times  to  satisfy 
his  sovereign  gradually  becoming  more  jealous  of 
her  prerogative,  more  harsh  and  despotic  just  in 
those  matters  of  conscience  and  religion  in  which 
she  should  have  been  less  so,  more  giddy  and 
frivolous,  as  she  advanced  to  years  when  the  follies 
of  youth  should  have  been  laid  aside,  and  the 
realities  of  the  faith  she  professed  to  defend 
should   have   bulked   larger   in    her    view.^     She 

1  "Toward  the  conclusion  of  her  reign,  the  example  of  the 
court  of  Elizabeth  was  decidedly  irreligious,  and  the  contagion 
spread  rapidly  among  the  common  people.  A  preposterous  ex- 
travagance in  dress  .   .  .  the  prevalence  of  oaths  (freely  indulged 


58    Development  and  History  of  Puritani 


sni 


might  on  great  occasions  still  come  forward  as  the 
champion  of  Protestantism,  and  act  with  true  dig- 
nity and  spirit  as  she  had  done  in  1572  when 
receiving  in  mourning,  and  with  expressions  of 
deepest  sorrow,  the  ambassador  of  the  French 
king  after  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  ;  and 
again  in  1588,  when,  in  prospect  of  the  arrival  of 
the  Spanish  Armada,  she  laid  aside  her  usual 
liaiiieiir,  courageously  cast  herself  on  the  sym- 
pathies and  loyalty  of  her  people,  and  placed  her- 
self at  their  head.  But  that  wealth  of  religious 
life  and  activity  which  the  new  faith  so  exuberantly 
called  forth,  and  all  the  effects  intellectual  and 
industrial  which  it  drew  in  its  train,  she  failed  to 
utilize  or  even  to  recognize  as  the  true  strength  of 
her  throne,  and  her  best  security  against  Popish 
reaction.  That  growing  love  of  freedom  and  im- 
patience of  minute  restraint  which  religious  and 
intellectual  activity  necessarily  fostered,  she  failed 
to  satisfy  or  appreciate,  or  even  generously  bear 
with.  She  fell  behind  instead  of  continuing  to 
keep  in  advance  of  her  advancing  people — endeav- 
oring to  anticipate  their  just  aspirations,  and  by 

in  by  the  queen  herself)  and,  to  crown  the  whole,  the  studied 
desecration  of  the  Sabbath,  mark  too  plainly  the  hollowness  of 
that  religious  profession  which  even  men  of  fashion  were  still  con- 
strained to  make.  .  .  .  Social  meetings  for  prayer  and  praise  and 
for  conference  among  the  clergy  are  almost  inseparable  from  a 
vigorous  piety  and  an  effective  ministry,  and  these  had  been  dis- 
couraged. They  were  chiefly  to  be  met  with  in  the  chambers  of 
the  Puritans." — Marsden's  Early  Puritans,  p.  239. 


lender   Oitcen  Elizabeth.  59 

kindly  treatment  to  retain  their  devoted  affec- 
tion. That  alone  coidd  have  made  the  continu- 
ance of  personal  government  still  possible,  and 
like  several  of  her  successors  in  similar  crises  of 
our  history,  Elizabeth  failed  to  realize  it,  and  at 
the  proper  time  to  act  on  it.  She,  who  with 
due  forethought  and  self-restraint  might  have 
permanently  attached  all  hearts  to  her  and  guided 
their  progress,  from  imperiousness  and  arbitrary 
temper  missed  the  possibility,  threw  away  the 
splendid  opportunities,  and  when  at  last  she  awoke 
in  some  measure  to  the  consciousness  of  what  she 
had  missed  or  thrown  away,  became  peevish  and 
irritable,  and  sank  into  deep  and  hopeless  melan- 
choly. "  That  bright  occidental  star  "  paled,  and 
set  in  a  gloomy  and  angry  sky. 

The  queen's  popularity,  I  have  said,  had  greatly 
waned  during  her  later  years.  Even  impartial 
secular  historians,  like  Hallam,  ascribe  this  not  so 
much  to  weightier  taxation,  or  to  blunders  and 
arbitrary  proceedings  in  her  civil  government,  as 
"  to  her  inflexible  tenaciousness  in  every  point  of 
ecclesiastical  discipline."  The  ablest  historian  of 
the  Puritans  tells  us  that  at  one  period  of  her 
reign,  when  Whitgift  was  allowed  to  have  his  way 
uncontrolled,  nearly  one-third  of  the  beneficed 
clergy  of  England  had  incurred  suspension,  and 
that  this  to  most  of  them  involved  destitution  and 
penury,   and    to    most   of    their   flocks    a    total 


6o    Development  and  History  of  Puritanism 

deprivation  of  the  means  of  grace.  Men  could 
not  fail  to  ask  :  "  Would  it  not  be  wiser  to  provide 
for  the  effervescence  of  a  well-meaning  zeal, 
however  troublesome,  within  the  bosom  of  the 
church,  than  to  cast  off  those  fiery  energies  which 
might  and  probably  would  be  arrayed  against 
her  ?  "  The  numerous  party  among  the  laity  who 
sympathized  with  them  had  begun  to  ask  this,  and 
others  than  they  were  beginning  to  do  so.  How 
anxious  thoughtful  men,  altogether  unconnected 
with  the  party,  had  by  that  time  become  that  all 
this  should  be  changed,  and  a  more  conciliatory 
course  be  tried,  appears  notably  from  a  tractate 
written  by  Francis  Bacon,  the  accomplished  phi- 
losopher and  statesman,  before  the  close  of  the 
year  at  which  we  have  now  arrived,  and  possibly 
drawn  up  for  the  guidance  of  Elizabeth's  successor 
when  assuming  the  government  of  the  English 
state.  In  this  tractate  Bacon  indorses  their  ob- 
jection to  the  use  of  the  words  priest,  absolution, 
and  confirmation,  "  takes  exception  to  the  various 
matters  of  ceremony  at  which  the  Puritans  scru- 
pled, inveighs  against  the  abuses  of  excommuni- 
cation, non-residence  and  plurality,  the  ex  officio 
oath,  and  the  excessive  power  of  the  bishops, 
against  all  which  they  protested ; "  and  in  the 
spirit  of  a  true  patriot,  he  demands  why  the  eccle- 
siastical state  should  be  put  at  greater  disadvan- 
tage  than   the    civil,  and    not    as    considerately 


under  Queen  Elizabeth.  6i 

adapted  to  the  changing  wants   and  desires    of 
Christian  men/ 

^  "  I  would  only  ask  why  the  civil  state  should  be  purged  and 
restored  by  good  and  wholesome  laws  made  every  third  or  fourth 
year  in  Parliaments  assembled,  devising  remedies  as  fast  as  time 
breedeth  mischiefs,  and  contrariwise  the  ecclesiastical  state  should 
siill  continue  upon  the  dregs  of  time,  and  receive  no  alteration 
now  for  these  five-and-forty  years  and  more.  If  it  be  said  to  me 
that  there  is  a  difference  between  civil  causes  and  ecclesiastical, 
they  may  as  well  tell  me  that  churches  and  chapels  need  no 
reparations  though  houses  and  castles  do,  whereas  commonly,  to 
speak  the  truth,  dilapidations  of  the  inward  and  spiritual  edifica- 
tion of  the  church  of  God  are  in  all  times  as  great  as  the  outward 
and  material.  Sure  I  am  that  the  very  word  and  style  of  reforma- 
tion used  by  our  Saviour  '■^  ab  initio  non  fuit  ita""  was  applied  to 
Church  matters,  and  those  of  the  highest  nature." — Spedding's 
Bacon,  vol.  iii.  p.  105. 


LECTURE    III. 

HISTORY    OF    PURITANISM    UNDER   THE    EARLIER 
STUART    KINGS. 

In  my  last  lecture  I  gave  you  an  account  of  the 
history  and  development  of  English  Puritanism 
during  the  reign  of  the  last  of  the  Tudor  sove- 
reigns. In  the  beginning  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  it 
may  be  said  to  have  been  still  in  its  infancy :  be- 
fore her  death  it  had  almost  attained  its  maturity. 
Under  the  unkindly  treatment  its  advocates  re- 
ceived, it  tended  more  and  more  to  develop  in  a 
polemical  as  well  as  a  practical  form.  The  de- 
fences employed  against  it  showed  the  same  tend- 
ency to  develop.  First  the  "  nocent  ceremonies  " 
formed  the  chief  subject  of  attack;  then,  when 
concessions  as  to  these  were  refused  or  withdrawn, 
the  attack  was  pushed  further.  The  worship  and 
government  of  the  church  were  more  generally 
assailed,  and  finally  the  war  threatened  to  extend 
into  the  region  of  doctrine,  in  which  chiefly  they 
contended  for  more  than  mere  toleration.  The 
principle  which  lay  at  the  root  of  all  the  contend- 
ings  of  its  advocates,  and  to  which  most  of  their 
varied  assaults  in  matters  of  minor  importance  can 
be  traced  up,  was  the  principle  that  the  church 

62 


History  of  Puritanism.  63 

has  no  right  to  burden  the  consciences  of  her 
members  in  matters  of  faith  and  worship  with 
aught  that  is  contrary  to  or  beside  {i.  e.  in  addition 
to)  the  express  or  implied  teaching  of  the  Word 
of  God.  In  other  words,  they  claimed  to  restrict 
the  authority  of  the  church  within  narrower  lim- 
its than  their  opponents,  and  to  reclaim  for  liberty 
a  larger  province  than  they  were  disposed  to  allow 
her.  They  did  not  as  yet  themselves  perceive 
the  full  import  of  the  principle  for  which  they 
contended.  They  were  reluctant  to  extend  it 
rigidly  to  the  constitution  and  government  of  the 
church  as  well  as  to  her  articles  of  faith  and  forms 
of  worship.  But  as  the  contest  proceeded,  they 
could  not  fail  to  be  led  on  more  and  more  dis- 
tinctly to  assert  it  with  a  fuller  consciousness  of 
its  far-reaching  consequences,  and  a  more  earnest 
longing  to  bring  back  the  church  in  constitution 
and  government,  as  well  as  in  faith  and  worship, 
to  what  they  believed  to  be  "  the  pattern  showed 
in  the  mount."  Their  opponents  were  also  led  by 
the  necessities  of  the  warfare  to  develop  their  de- 
fence. The  first  Elizabethan  bishops  accepted  the 
ceremonies  and  habits,  and  reluctantly  submitted 
to  various  restrictions,  because  the  queen  so  or- 
dered it,  and  they  failed  to  bend  her  will  in  the 
direction  they  desired,  and  in  the  direction  their 
Protestant  brethren  abroad  had  already  led  the 
way.     Their  successors,  more  wedded  to  that  to 


64  History  of  Puritanism 

which  they  had  become  accustomed,  resolutely 
undertook  its  defense,  asserting  against  the  Puri- 
tan position  the  counter  proposition  that  while 
Scripture  supplied  an  absolute  rule  of  faith,  and 
no  doctrine  not  drawn  from  it  was  to  be  imposed 
on  the  consciences  of  the  members  of  the  church, 
yet  that  it  was  not  meant  to  be  a  complete  or 
absolute  rule  in  matters  of  worship  and  church 
constitution,  but  that  much  for  which  Scriptural 
precedent  might  be  alleged  might  be  now  unnec- 
essary or  inexpedient,  and  much  which  Scripture 
had  left  undetermined  might  be  necessary  to  be 
regulated,  and  that  the  church  had  authority  to 
regulate  all  matters  of  this  sort  and  to  require 
obedience  to  her  regulations,  provided  they  were 
not  positively  contrary  to  Scripture.  They  as- 
serted that  the  church  had  a  right  to  retain  her 
polity  and  forms  if  ancient  and  accordant  with 
those  of  the  state  in  which  her  lot  was  cast,  and 
that  agitation  for  a  more  popular  form  might  be 
not  only  inexpedient  and  unseemly,  but  even  un- 
lawful under  a  monarchy. 

This  in  brief  was  the  position  maintained  with 
much  logical  dexterity  and  persistence  by  Whitgift 
and  Cooper,  and  with  certain  modifications  by  the 
great  and  gifted  Hooker  in  that  treatise  of  Eccle- 
siastical Polity  which  still  excites  the  admiration  of 
men  of  so  divergent  sentiments  for  the  candor  and 
acuteness  of  its  reasoning,  and  the  stately  majesty 


un 


der  tJie  earlier  Stuart  Kiiios,       65 


of  its  diction.  Finally,  as  the  controversy  became 
more  embittered,  some  zealots  in  defence  of  the 
existing  order  of  things  advanced  beyond  the  lines 
of  Whitgift,  or  even  of  Hooker.  They  claimed  for 
the  constitution  and  government  of  the  Anglican 
church  a  jus  diviiiuni,  and  maintained  that  the 
episcopate  was  by  divine  right  above  the  pres- 
byterate,  and  that  to  assert  the  opposite  was  not 
merely  an  error  but  a  "  heresy."  This  position, 
first  broached  by  Bancroft  in  the  reign  of  Eliza- 
beth, was  to  find  many  supporters  in  the  period  I 
am  now  to  describe,  and  for  a  time  almost  to  drive 
the  more  liberal  and  attractive  theory  of  Hooker 
out  of  the  field,  even  in  the  church  he  adorned. 

It  was  on  the  24th  of  March  1602-3,  that 
Elizabeth's  long  reign  came  to  a  close,  and  she 
was  succeeded  by  James  I.  of  England  and  VI. 
of  Scotland.  The  character  of  James,  while  cal- 
culated favorably  to  impress  on  superficial  obser- 
vation, discloses  after  deeper  study  elements  which 
could  not  fail  to  mar  the  success  of  his  reign. 
There  was,  as  has  been  said,  a  "strange  mixture 
in  it  of  sagacity  and  folly."  Love  of  letters 
and  learned  men  combined  with  a  passion  for 
low  sports ;  professions  of  religion  and  zeal  for 
Protestantism  discredited  at  times  by  mean  truck- 
ling to  '*  catholic  "  powers,  by  shameful  insin- 
cerity and  vulgar  profanity.  "  His  intellectual 
powers  were  of  no  common  order,  his  learning, 
5 


66  History  of  Pitritanisin 

especially  on  theological  subjects,  by  no  means 
contemptible."  His  courtiers — even  those  of  them 
who  were  ministers  of  the  church — were  wont  to 
speak  of  him  as  the  British  Solomon.  Some 
modern  historians,  on  the  other  hand,  affirm  that 
as  Henry  IV.  of  France  said,  he  was  only  "  the 
wisest  fool  in  Christendom."  He  was  good- 
natured,  but  he  allowed  his  goodness  to  be  abused 
by  unworthy  favorites.  He  was  shrewd  and 
cunning,  and  yet  could  so  far  conceal  his  artifice, 
that  he  imposed,  for  a  time  at  least,  on  many  good 
men  in  Scotland,  and  on  many  of  the  great  states- 
men and  churchmen  of  England.^  But  he  became, 
as  Bishop  Burnet  has  said,  "  the  scorn  of  his  age," 
and  "  was  despised  by  all  abroad  as  a  pedant  with- 
out true  judgment,  courage,  or  steadiness,  a  slave 
to  his  favorites,  and  delivered  up  to  the  counsels 
or  rather  the  corruption  of  Spain."  ^    He  was  fond 

^  "  Such  a  king  as  since  Christ's  time  hath  not  been." — Ban- 
croft. "  The  learnedest  king  that  ever  sat  upon  this  throne,  or  as 
I  verily  think  since  Solomon's  time  on  any  other." — Bishop  Hall. 
"  A  king  of  incomparable  clemency,  and  whose  heart  is  inscrutable 
for  wisdom  and  goodness." — Lord  Bacon. 

2  His  defects  Mr.  vS.  Rawson  Gardiner  is  disposed  to  trace  to 
"that  scene  of  terror  which  passed  before  his  mother  while  he  was 
yet  unborn.  He  came  into  the  world  imperfect.  His  body,  his 
mind,  and  his  heart  appear  alike  to  have  been  wanting  in  that 
central  force  by  which  the  human  frame  and  the  human  intellect 
are  at  the  same  time  invigorated  and  controlled.  His  ungainly 
figure  was  the  type  of  his  inner  life.  .  .  .  No  true  and  lofty  faith 
ever  warmed  his  heart.  No  pure  reverence  ever  exalted  his  under- 
standing."— History  of  England  fnnn  1603  to  1616,  vol.  i.  p.  56. 
See  also  Green's  History,  vol.  iii.  pp.  55,  56. 


tinder  the  earlier  Stuart  Kings.       67 

of  absolute  power,  and  implacable  against  those 
who  called  in  question  any  of  his  prerogatives, 
fond  of  theological  discussion,  especially  when  he 
could  count  on  an  opponent  courtly  enough  not 
to  press  him  too  hard  in  argument,  fond  of  talking 
and  writing  against  Popery,  yet  often  found  really 
acting  for  it.  Above  all,  lie  was  fond  of  manage- 
ment and  trickery,  and  vain  of  his  ability  and 
success  in  this,  which  he  dignified  with  the  name 
of  kingcraft.  But  this  craft  in  which  he  deemed 
himself  a  master  failed  to  secure  the  subservience 
of  his  Parliaments,  or  to  crush  the  aspirations  of 
his  people  after  greater  liberty  in  church  and  state. 
His  accession  to  the  English  throne  could  not 
fail  to  raise  hopes  of  kindlier  treatment  in  the 
minds  of  the  Puritans.  He  had  previously  to 
some  extent  shown  himself  their  friend,  and  invited 
more  than  one  of  their  leaders,  when  harshly 
oppressed  in  England,  to  occupy  a  chair  in  a 
Scottish  University,^  and  had  ventured  to  inter- 
cede with  Queen  Elizabeth  on  their  behalf  He 
had  himself  sanctioned  and  subscribed  in  1581 
what  was  termed  the  "  negative "  Confession  of 
Faith,  in  which  the  ceremonies  and  the  hierarchy 
appeared  to  be  utterly  condemned,  and  on  one 
memorable  occasion  had  spoken  of  the  Itnglish 
Prayer-Book  as  '*an    evil    said    mass  in  P^nglish, 

^  Cartwriglit  and  Travers  were  invited  to  join  Melville  in  the 
New  College,  St.  Andrew's.     M'Crie's  Life  of  Melville,  p.  153. 


6S  History  of  Puritanism 

wanting  nothing  of  the  mass  but  the  Hftings."  He 
had  no  pronounced  rituaHstic  procHvities,  no  im- 
practicable jure  diviiio  notions  as  to  the  office  of  a 
bishop  as  he  had  of  the  "  divinity  that  doth  hedge 
a  king,"  and  he  was  too  well  read  in  theology  not 
to  know  what  was  really  Protestant  doctrine  and 
what  was  not.  But  unfortunately  he  had  already 
come  into  collision  with  the  leaders  of  the  more 
decidedly  Puritanic  party  in  the  Scottish  church, 
both  through  his  exercise  of  despotic  power  and 
through  the  coarser  vices  to  which  he  or  his  cour- 
tiers were  addicted,  and  had  given  more  plain 
than  pleasant  evidence  of  his  dislike  to  them  in 
his  Basilicon  Doron.  So  plain  and  unmistakable 
indeed  was  this  that  he  had  to  make  more  than 
one  attempt  to  explain  his  words  away.  But 
notwithstanding  all  his  explanations,  there  was 
from  his  known  peculiarities  ground  to  fear  that 
he  might  be  tempted  to  avenge  on  their  southern 
co-religionists  the  defeats  and  affionts  he  had  re- 
ceived from  their  Scottish  brethren,  and  might  be 
induced  to  throw  himself  into  the  arms  of  the 
prelates,  who  were  prepared  to  make  common 
cause  with  him  in  the  maintenance  of  prerogative, 
and  sedulously  to  foster  in  his  mind  the  idea  that 
its  maintenance  was  closely  bound  up  with  the 
preservation  of  their  cherished  hierarchy — in  fact, 
to  give  all  possible  currency  to  his  favorite  maxim, 
"  No  Bishop  no  King." 


under  the  earlier  Stuart  Kings,       69 

As  he  proceeded  on  his  way  to  take  possession 
of  his  new  kingdom,  petitions  for  reHef  or  in- 
dulgence were  presented  to  him  by  the  oppressed 
Puritans,  showing  how  partial  was  the  effect  the 
harsh  measures  of  Elizabeth  and  Whitgift  had 
really  had  in  checking  the  growth  of  this  obnox- 
ious school.  Chief  among  these  petitions  was  the 
Millenary  Petition, — so  designated  either  from  its 
being  signed  or  approved  of  ^  by  nearly  a  thousand 
(in  reality  about  800)  ministers,  or  from  the  asser- 
tion contained  in  it  that  it  represented  the  views 
of  more  than  a  thousand  of  the  ministers  of  the 
church.  It  was  expressed  in  deferential  and  mod- 
erate language,  and  its  prayer  for  relief  might  have 
been  granted  without  the  slightest  danger  to  the 
church  or  injury  to  the  cause  of  religion  in  the 
land.  An  opportunity  of  repairing  the  mistake 
Elizabeth  had  made  in  the  early  years  of  her  reign, 
and  had  persisted  in  to  the  last,  was  now  in  God's 
good  providence  presented,  and  had  the  king  been 
really  touched  by  the  grateful  and  graceful  saluta- 
tion addressed  to  him  by  the  old  Puritan  leader 
from  his  deathbed,  and  risen  to  the  occasion,  or 
had  he  followed  the  counsels  tendered  by  states- 

^  Some  say  approbation,  not  subscription,  was  asked,  and  that 
the  numbers  so  approving  were  750.  A  pamphlet  printed  in  1606 
gives  the  numbers  in  25  English  counties,  the  sum  of  which  is  746, 
But  no  mention  is  made  of  the  Welsh  counties  or  of  most  within 
the  province  of  York,  from  which  returns  may  have  been  later  in 
coming  to  hand. 


70  History  of  Puritanism 

men  like  Bacon,  and  acted  with  ordinary  prudence 
and  moderation  at  this  juncture,  peace  might  have 
been  restored  to  the  distracted  church  on  very 
favorable  terms,  and  relief  granted  to  many  earn- 
est men  warmly  attached  to  the  institutions  of 
their  country  and  desirous  to  aid  in  the  more 
efficient  maintenance  of  them.  The  king  with 
great  tact  consented  to  hold  a  conference  to  con- 
sider the  grievances  of  which  the  petitioners  com- 
plained, and  to  learn  in  detail  what  the  bishops 
had  to  say  for  themselves. 

To  this  conference,  held  on  the  14th,  i6th,  and 
18th  January,  1603-4,  he  invited  four  of  the  ablest 
and  most  moderate  of  the  Puritan  ministers,  viz.. 
Dr.  Reynolds  of  Oxford,  Dr.  Chaderton  of  Cam- 
bridge, Dr.  Sparkes  and  Mr.  Knewstub,  along  with 
Archbishop  Whitgift,  eight  bishops  and  as  many 
inferior  dignitaries.^  Had  he  only  held  the  balance 
evenly  between  the  contending  parties,  allowed  each 
fully  and  fairly  to  state  his  case,  and  endeavored 
to  decide  between  them  as  a  calm  judge  rather  than 
as  a  keen  partisan,  he  could  hardly  have  failed  to 
conciliate  the  favor  of  the  one  without  alienating 
the  other.  But  he  managed  matters  with  such  arro- 
gance and  coarseness  as  brought  him  little  thanks 
for  the  few  concessions  he  ultimately  made,  and 
deeply  wounded  the  feelings  of  the  party  he  refused 

^  Patrick  Galloway  was  also  present  and  wrote  an  account  of 
the  Conference,  to  the  presbytery  of  Edinburgh. 


lender  the  earlier  Stuart  Kings.       7 1 

more  fully  to  relieve.  He  knew  that  he  had  that 
party  at  his  mercy  and  wished  to  make  them  feel 
that  it  was  so.  Their  desire  for  a  carefully  revised 
translation  of  the  Scriptures  was  approved  of  and 
in  due  time  was  carried  out,  and  those  who  would 
give  the  credit  of  that  great  undertaking  entirely 
to  others  need  to  be  reminded  that  it  was  originally 
suggested  and  pressed  by  the  more  learned  Puri- 
tans, and  that  no  one  while  he  lived  took  greater 
interest  in  helping  it  on  than  the  old  Oxford 
Puritan  who  had  urged  it  at  this  conference. 
Some  of  the  more  objectionable  chapters  from  the 
Apocrypha  were  agreed  to  be  struck  out  of  the 
Table  of  Lessons,  and  Archbishop  Abbot  held 
that  the  old  injunctions  of  Queen  Elizabeth  left 
ministers  the  discretion  of  going  further  in  that 
direction.  Certain  additions  explaining  the  nature 
of  the  Sacraments  were  authorized  to  be  made  to 
the  Church  Catechism,  and  the  rubric  of  the 
service  for  private  baptism  was  so  altered  as  to 
discourage  lay-baptism.  The  Act  of  Edward  VI. 
declaring  the  lawfulness  of  clerical  marriages  was 
promised  to  be  revived.  But  there  was  no  con- 
cession in  regard  to  the  "  three  nocent  ceremonies  " 
which  Bacon  then,  and  Ussher  forty  years  later, 
would  willingly  have  given  up,  nor  in  regard  to 
the  terms  of  subscription  which  have,  with  consent 
of  all  parties,  in  our  own  day,  been  changed  into 


72  History  of  Puritanism 

a  form  that  would  have  ahnost  met  the  scruples 
of  the  petitioners,  ere  the  church  was  yet  rent  and 
English  Protestantism  hopelessly  divided.  There 
was  no  attempt  to  provide  a  remedy  for  the 
scarcity  of  preachers  and  the  redundance  of  non- 
preaching  pluralists, — scandals  from  which  the 
church  continued  to  suffer  for  nearly  half  a  cen- 
tury. With  respect  to  those  meetings  of  the 
clergy  for  prayer  and  religious  conference  which 
Grindal  and  other  bishops  had  desired  to  tolerate 
in  the  previous  reign,  as  also  more  formal  meetings 
of  the  Presbyters  in  Synod  with  their  Bishop, 
which  no  authority  would  now  think  of  opposing, 
the  king,  coarsely  interrupting  their  representative, 
said  they  were  aiming  at  a  Scottish  Presbytery, 
which  "  agreeth  with  a  monarchy  as  well  as  God 
with  the  devil.  There  Jack,  and  Tom,  and  Will, 
and  Dick,  shall  meet  and  at  their  pleasures  censure 
me  and  my  council."  The  closing  scene  was  even 
more  coarse  and  offensive.  "Well,  Doctor,"  he 
said,  addressing  Dr.  Reynolds,  *'  have  you  anything 
else  to  say  ?"  "  No  more  at  present,  please  your 
majesty,"  was  the  meek  reply.  "  If  this,"  rejoined 
the  king,  "  be  all  the  party  hath  to  say,  I  will 
make  them  conform,  or  else  I  will  harry  them  out  of 
the  land,  or  else  do  worse,  hang  them — that  is  all." 
And  this,  according  to  Hallam,  was  addressed  to  a 
man  who  "  was  nearly,  if  not  altogether,  the  most 


under  tJic  earlier  Stuart  Ki 

learned  man  in  England."  '  It  was  a  gross  violation 
of  the  assurance  he  had  given  in  his  writings  that 
learned  and  moderate  Puritans  of  this  stamp  would 
be  held  by  him  in  equal  honor  and  love  with  their 
opponents.^ 

The  same  year  which  witnessed  this  memorable 
Conference  witnessed  also  the  summoning  of  the 
king's  first  Parliament  and  of  the  Convocation  of 
the  Church.^  The  concessions  agreed  to  at  the 
conference  were  not  submitted  for  the  approval  of 
Convocation,  though  that  is  maintained  by  Anglo- 
Catholics  now,  as  well  as  by  Puritans  then,  to  be 
the  course  which  in  such  a  case  ought  to  be 
followed.  It  was  thought  more  for  the  honor  of 
the  king  that  they  should  be  made  simply  by  his 
prerogative  royal,  save  the  one  relating  to  clerical 
marriages,  which  required  to  be  submitted  to 
Parliament.  But  while  the  House  of  Commons 
was    discouraged   from    interfering    on    behalf  of 

^  Others  suppose  it  was  spoken  aside  to  some  of  the  opposite 
party.     For  further  details  as  to  this  conference,  see  App.,  Note  C. 

2  "  The  style  of  Puritans  belongs  properly  to  that  vile  sect  of 
the  Anabaptists  only,  called  the  family  of  love.  It  is  only  this 
sort  of  men  that  I  wish  my  son  to  punish.  .  .  .  But  I  protest 
upon  mine  honor  I  mean  it  not  generally  of  all  preachers,  and 
others  that  like  better  of  the  single  form  of  policy  in  our  Church 
of  Scotland  than  of  the  many  ceremonies  in  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. No,  I  am  so  far  from  being  contentious  in  these  things  that 
I  do  equally  love  and  honor  the  learned  and  grave  of  either  opin- 
ion."    (E.  204,  No.  2.) 

^  It  is  called  the  Convocation  of  1 603,  but  though  it  began  on 
20th  March,  1603-4,  most  of  its  sittings  fell  within  what  even  in 
the  old  style  was  the  year  1604. 


74  History  of  Puritanism 

the  Puritans/  permission  was  given  to  the  Con- 
vocation to  prepare  a  series  of  constitutions  and 
canons  ecclesiastical  which  were  duly  sanctioned 
by  royal  authority,  and  which,  so  far  as  the  clergy 
are  concerned,  and  they  have  not  been  allowed  to 
fall  into  desuetude,  are  held  still  to  embody  the 
law  of  the  Church  of  England.  They  were  141 
in  number,  and  several  of  them  were  directed  ex- 
pressly against  the  Puritans,  and  seem  to  us  now- 
adays sufficiently  harsh.  "  If  cursing,"  says  Dr. 
Price,^  "  could  have  effected  their  destruction,  it 
would  have  been  now  inevitable.  The  sentence  of 
excommunication  ipso  facto  was  now  added  to  the 
other  penalties  of  nonconformity."  They  were 
anathematized  if  they  remained  in  the  church, 
holding  any  of  its  rites  to  be  superstitious  and 
repugnant  to  Scripture.  They  were  anathematized 
if  they  seceded  and  ventured  to  affirm  that  their 
meetings  or  congregations  apart  were  true  and 
lawful  churches.  Even  in  the  Convocation  which 
passed  these  harsh  canons  one  bishop  was  found 
bold  enough  to  plead  for  concession  or  at  least 
forbearance  in  regard  to  subscription  and  the  nocent 
ceremonies,  enlarging  on  the  evils  of  a  house  divided 
against  itself,  and  the  mistake  of  silencing  so  many 
able  preachers  at  a  time  when  their  services  were 
so  much  needed,  and  warning  his   brethren   of  a 

1  Three  parts  of  tlie  House  were  said  to  be  favorable  to  them. 

2  History  of  Protestant  JVonconformity,  vol.  i.  p.  476, 


nnder  the  earlier  Stuart  K 

day  '*  when  for  want  of  their  joint-hibors  some 
such  doleful  complaint  might  arise  as  fell  out 
upon  an  accident  of  another  nature  recorded  in 
the  Book  of  Judges,  when  it  is  said  that  for  the 
divisions  of  Reuben  there  were  great  searchings 
of  heart."  One  who  bore  a  name  long  and  hon- 
orably associated  with  moderate  Puritanism  made 
a  more  direct  attempt  to  gain  the  sovereign's 
ear.  Dr.  John  Burgess,  afterward  of  Sutton 
Coldfield,  in  his  sermon  before  the  king  at  Green- 
wich, on  19th  July,  1604,  boldly  warned  him  of 
the  dangers  of  the  course  on  which  he  had 
entered,  and  pleaded  for  indulgence  to  the  many 
worthy  men  who  were  exposed  to  his  displeasure. 
The  reasons  given  for  this  bold  step  in  the  apology 
he  made,  were  "  new  and  unwonted  urging  of  the 
ceremonies  and  subscription  beyond  what  law 
required  (whereby  six  or  seven  hundred  of  the 
ablest  ministers  in  the  land  are  like  to  be  put 
out),  the  general  depraving  of  religious  persons  (if 
they  be  conscionable)  under  the  scorn  of  Puritan- 
ism, as  if,  the  body  of  religion  standing  upright, 
men  would  yet  cut  the  throat  of  it  .  .  .  the  with- 
drawing of  ecclesiastical  causes  from  Parliament, 
though  in  the  present  and  in  your  majesty's  days 
safe,  yet  in  the  precedent  and  sanction  of  doubtful 
consequence."  Not  even  Bacon  could  have  put 
the  matter  more  forcibly,  nor  followed  this  up 
more  moderately   and  persuasively  than  he   pro- 


76  History  of  Puritanism 

ceeded  to  do.  "  Things  which  I  confess  I  hold 
not  impious,  but  needless  and  scandalous,  many 
hundred  ministers  think  them  unlawful  and  would 
surely  die  rather  than  use  them.  .  .  .  What  is 
yielded  upon  suit  for  peace's  sake  might  go  out 
with  flying  colors,  one  side  satisfied  with  their 
justifying,  and  the  other  gratified  with  their  re- 
moval, the  form  of  the  present  government  being 
still  continued  with  good  approbation,  and  con- 
firmed by  our  inward  peace."  ^ 

Shortly  after  the  adjournment  of  Parliament  and 
Convocation  a  royal  proclamation  was  issued,  en- 
joining strict  conformity  to  the  established  order 
of  the  church;  many  Puritan  clergy  were  silenced, 
some  who  ventured  to  petition  for  indulgence  were 
imprisoned;  their  flocks  were  irritated  and  the 
lawfulness  of  separating  from  the  National  Church 
began  to  be  more  openly  discussed.^  The  number 
of  silenced  and  deprived  ministers  is  variously 
estimated.  Some  place  it  as  high  as  1500,  but 
this  more  probably  represents  the  number  of  those 
who  at  first  refused  to  subscribe  to  the  three 
articles  of  the  new  Canon  making  the  terms  of 
conformity  more  stringent  than  Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment warranted.  Others  have  reduced  the  number 
as  low  as  fifty.  Calderwood  and  Neale  say  it  was 
above  300,  Brooke  makes  it  400.     Others   were 

^  Sermons,  etc.  (E.  145,  No.  2.) 

'^  Marsden's  Early  Puritans,  p.  276. 


tinder  the  earlier  Stuart  Kings,       yj 

borne  with  by  individual  bishops,  and  through  all 
this  reign  even  kneeling  at  the  Communion  was 
not  enforced  in  some  places,  and  "  prophesyings  " 
were  in  one  or  two  instances  winked  at.  The 
Archbishop  of  York  is  said  to  have  been  more 
tolerant  than  his  brother  of  Canterbury.  Neale 
gives  various  touching  instances  of  the  hardships 
to  which  several  of  the  silenced  ministers  were 
subjected,  but  none  of  these  is  so  touching  as  is 
the  case  of  the  Scottish  ministers,  who  about  the 
same  time  were  decoyed  from  their  distant  homes, 
professedly  to  advise  with  the  king  as  to  the 
changes  contemplated  by  him  in  the  Scottish 
church,  but  really  to  deprive  their  brethren  opposed 
to  these  changes  of  the  benefit  of  their  counsel 
and  courageous  example.  Dr.  Hook  is  pleased 
to  make  merry  over  their  case  as  a  very  harmless 
piece  of  revenge  for  all  the  lectures  they  had 
inflicted  on  the  king  in  former  times.  But  the 
device  of  summoning  from  Scotland,  into  what  was 
virtually  a  foreign  land,  men  whose  only  offense 
was  the  influence  their  talents  and  character  gave 
them,  and  the  exercise  of  the  liberty  the  laws  of 
their  country  allowed  them,  was  as  illegal  as  it 
was  harsh  and  spiteful.  The  long  imprisonment 
of  Andrew  Melville^  in  the  Tower  of  London,  and 

1  No  one  who  has  read  the  sad  story  of  his  later  years  when  a 
prisoner  in  the  Tower  of  London,  or  an  exile  in  a  foreign  land,  can 
fail  to  commiserate  the  hard  fate  of  this  great  scholar  and  patriot. 
One  can  read,  if  not  without  indignation  yet  without  disgust,  the 


yS  History  of  Puritanism 

the  life-long  detention  of  his  nephew  James  from 
his  native  land,  on  both  of  which  the  Doctor  is 
judiciously  silent,  were  among  the  most  unjust 
and  tyrannical  actions  of  James's  reign.  They 
gave  to  his  Puritan  subjects  in  the  south  a  prac- 
tical exemplification  of  what  he  meant  by  the 
coarse  threat  of  harrying  them  out  of  the  land. 
That  in  fact  was  what  it  soon  came  to.  A  num- 
ber of  their  leaders  as  well  as  Andrew  Melville, 
Forbes,  Sharp,  Dury,  and  Welsh  from  Scotland, 
had  to  seek  abroad,  in  the  Protestant  Colleges  of 
France,  or  among  the  merchant  communities  of 
their  countrymen  in  the  free  cities  of  the  Nether- 
lands, the  toleration  which  was  denied  to  them  at 
home.  There,  using  in  the  service  of  the  ingenu- 
ous youth  of  other  lands  or  of  their  countrymen 
settled  in  foreign  cities,  the  stores  of  learning  they 
had  amassed  in  more  favorable  times,  they  were 
honored  to  do  good  work  for  the  IMaster  they 
loved,  and  to  train  a  seed  to  serve  Him  and  to 
bear  the  banner  of  His  crown  and  covenant  when 
they  should  be  called  away. 

Soon  after   the    close  of  the    Hampton   Court 
Conference  the  long  life  of  Archbishop  Whitgift 

passionate  words  of  the  youthful  Mary,  when  she  thought  she  had 
at  last  got  Knox  into  her  power ;  but  one  cannot  think  without 
indignation  and  disgust  of  her  son,  now  in  the  maturity  of  his 
powers,  listening  behind  the  tapestry  while  his  honest,  if  stern, 
reprover,  at  length  entrapped  into  what  was  to  him  a  foreign 
country,  was  being  badgered  and  baited  by  the  English  Privy 
Council. 


under  the  earlier  Stuart  Kinos,       79 

came  to  an  end.  He  was  an  acute  disputant,  a 
sound,  well-read  divine,  a  firm  supporter  of  the 
Augustinian  or  Calvinistic  theology,  a  zealous  and 
courageous  prelate,  but  a  man  of  imperious  and 
"  choleric  temper,"  harsh  and  cruel  toward  his  op- 
ponents. He  looked  forward  with  apprehension 
to  the  approaching  meeting  of  Parliament,  and 
expressed  a  wish  he  might  be  summoned  to  give 
in  his  account  in  another  world  before  it  met.  He 
may  have  had  a  dim  presentiment  of  some  of  the 
sad  consequences  of  the  tacit  alliance  he  and  his 
fellows  had  formed  with  despotism  in  the  state, 
and  more  than  a  dim  presentiment  of  the  conse- 
quences which  must  follow  from  the  more  than 
tacit  alliance,  which  now  could  hardly  fail  to  be 
struck  between  the  more  resolute  of  the  Puritans 
and  the  patriots  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

Whitgift  was  succeeded  by  Bancroft,  Bishop 
of  London,  who  had  been  the  champion  of  the 
hierarchy  at  the  Hampton  Court  Conference,  was 
more  blind  to  consequences,  more  decidedly  High 
Church,  and  more  hostile  to  the  Puritans, — 
"a  sturdy  piece,"  according  to  Bishop  Kennet, 
"  who  proceeded  with  rigor,  severity,  and  wrath  " 
against  them.  He  was  in  many  respects  the  true 
precursor  of  Laud,  not  only  in  asserting  the  jus 
divi)iuin  of  episcopacy,  but  also  in  attempting  to 
revive  disused  ornaments  and  ceremonies.  His 
primacy  was  short,  and  after  seven  years  he  was 


So  History  of  Pitritanism 

succeeded  by  George  Abbot,  a  man  naturally 
more  tolerant  and  kindly  to  all  who  valued  the 
principles  of  the  Reformation,  of  more  extensive 
erudition,  more  thoroughly  Protestant,  and  the  last 
Augustinian,  I  suppose,  who  sat  on  the  throne  of 
Canterbury.  It  is  said  to  have  been  at  his  ex- 
pense that  the  great  work  of  his  old  Augustinian 
predecessor,  Bradwardine — Dc  causa  Dei  contra 
Pclagiiini — was  finally  given  to  the  world.  His 
former  experiences  at  Oxford  had  made  him  fully 
alive  to  the  dangers  which  nascent  Anglo-Cathol- 
icism, and  a  more  indulgently  treated  Romanism, 
might  occasion  to  the  church  and  nation,  and  it 
was  no  doubt  the  earnest  and  hearty  services  ren- 
dered by  the  moderate  Puritans  in  the  defense  of 
the  principles  of  the  Reformation,  which  secured 
for  them  gentler  usage  at  his  hands.  Under  his 
regime  their  condition  appears  to  have  been  con- 
siderably ameliorated.  Those  who  still  remained 
in  benefices  were  not  harshly  prosecuted  as  they 
had  been  before;  while  those  who  did  not  see 
their  way  so  far  to  conform  to  the  requirements 
of  the  Canons  and  Prayer-Book  as  to  qualify 
themselves  for  benefices,  were  encouraged  to  use 
their  gifts  in  the  service  of  the  church  as  lecturers 
and  preachers.  Those  who  scrupled  to  subscribe 
Whitgift's  terms  of  conformity,  might  still  obtain 
orders  on  more  favorable  conditions  from  Irish 
bishops,  and   not  a  few  of  them,  like  Non-jurists 


U7ider  the  earlier  Stuart  Kings.       8i 

of  a  later  day,  acted  as  private  chaplains  in  the 
families  of  the  nobility  and  gentry,  or  earned  a 
precarious  subsistence  by  teaching.  Through  the 
liberality  of  many  of  the  lay  friends  of  the  party, 
and  the  purchase  of  impropriated  tithes,  fixed 
salaries  were  provided,  and  the  number  of  these 
lecturers  was  gradually  increased.  The  cause  of 
religion  under  their  earnest  lectures  and  catechis- 
ings  prospered  much  in  London  and  the  provin- 
cial towns,  and  to  their  oral  teaching  was  added  a 
multitude  of  practical  religious  treatises,  issued 
through  the  press,  which  extended  their  influence 
far  and  wide,  and  made  this  era  one  of  the  most 
memorable  in  this  department  of  literature.^  If 
they  had  not  theoretically  abandoned  the  opinions 
of  Cartwright,  practically,  like  himself  in  his  later 
days,  they  had  ceased  to  contend  for  them,  and 
devoted  themselves  to  peaceful  work.  Abbot, 
while  a  courtier  and  a  conscientious  conformist, 
was  like  many  of  the  bishops  of  king  James  an 
Augustinian,  or  Calvinist,  in  thorough  sympathy 

^  What  Ileppe  says  of  them  at  a  somewhat  later  period  was 
certainly  true  of  them  at  this  date  also  :  Wirkten  sie  nichl  nur  als 
begeisterte  Prediger,  sondern  auch  als  eifrige  Katecheten  -  indem 
sie  die  Katechisation  als  ein  besonders  wirksames  Mittel  zur  Ver- 
breitungdes  Evangelium's  ansahen — sowieals  die  treuesten,ernsten 
Seelsorger,  als  Wohlergeben  der  ihnen  anvertrauten  Gemeinden 
in  allerlei  Weisen  zu  fordern  und  zu  heben  suchten.  Strenge 
Kirchenzucht,  fleissig  besuchte  Katechisationen,  und  haufig  zu- 
sammentretende  Conventikel  der  Gemeindeglieder  sah  man  iiberall 
wo  pietistische  Prediger  wirkten,  und  ebenso  sah  man  den  Segen 
ihrer  Wirksamkeit. —  Geschichte  des  Pietismus,  pp.  50,  51. 
6 


82  History  of  Puritanism 

with  the  reformed  churches  abroad,  and  with  no 
liankering  after  that  scheme  which  at  times  had 
attractions  for  James  himself,  and  greater  for  his 
unfortunate  successor,  the  endeavoring  to  bring 
about  an  understanding  between  the  Papists  and 
the  Church  of  England.  It  was  through  his 
counsels  that  the  king  was  persuaded  in  1615  to 
authorize  the  Irish  Articles,  and  so  virtually  to 
concede  beyond  the  Irish  Channel  what  had  been 
refused  on  this  side  at  the  Hampton  Court  Con- 
ference, and  also  in  16 18  to  send  deputies  from 
the  English  church  to  the  famous  Synod  of  Dort 
in  Holland,  and  so  give  practical  countenance  to 
the  reformed  churches  on  the  Continent ;  and  on 
more  than  one  occasion  he  sought  to  mediate  in 
the  doctrinal  disputes  of  the  Protestants  in  France. 
It  is  said  to  have  been  by  his  influence  that  the 
general  reading  of  the  Proclamation  regarding 
sports  lawful  on  the  Lord's  Day  was  not  enforced. 
If  at  times  in  his  last  years  James  showed  favor 
to  the  Arminians,  yet  in  raising  Ussher  to  the 
primacy  of  the  Irish  church  he  provided  before- 
hand a  friend  to  shelter  the  Puritans  when  their 
protector  in  England  had  passed  away,  a  defender 
of  Protestantism  whose  learning  and  competency 
none  could  question,  an  Augustinian  whose  varied 
gifts  Laud  and  his  followers  might  envy  but  could 
not  outvie,  and  dared  not  contemn. 

The  king's  eldest  son,  Henry,  Prince  of  Scot- 


7nidcr  tJie  earlier  Stuart  Kings.       83 

land  and  Prince  of  Wales,  a  young  man  of  high 
spirit  and  great  promise,  in  sympathy  with  all 
that  was  earnest  and  good,  the  one  real  ornament 
of  his  father's  court,  was  cut  off  by  a  mysterious 
illness  in  161 1.  Like  that  son  of  Jeroboam,  in 
whose  heart  some  good  thing  was  found,  he  was 
taken  away,  to  the  grief  of  all  good  men,  in  those 
anxious  times.  His  removal  dashed  their  cher- 
ished hopes,  that  a  happy  solution  of  questions 
pending  in  Church  and  State,  which  it  was  evident 
could  not  now  be  long  deferred,  might  by  his 
means  have  been  attained  and  the  hold  of  the 
Stuart  dynasty  on  the  affections  of  the  English 
people  mightily  strengthened.  The  marriage  of 
his  eldest  sister  to  the  Protestant  Elector  Palatine, 
the  prospect  of  which  had  cheered  him  in  his  last 
hours,  and  the  consequences  of  which  were  ulti- 
mately to  be  so  much  more  blessed  to  the  nation 
than  even  he  could  then  anticipate,  was  celebrated 
soon  after  his  death,  and  in  some  measure  lightened 
the  gloom  of  that  event.  It  increased  the  interest 
of  the  people  in  the  fortunes  of  the  foreign  Pro- 
testants, and  had  the  king  only  shared  their 
spirit  its  more  immediate  consequences  to  the 
Protestants  at  home  and  abroad,  and  to  the  Stu- 
art dynasty,  would  have  been  more  blessed  still. 

The  throne  at  the  death  of  James  passed  to 
his  younger  son  Charles, — a  prince  in  character 
more  noble,  chivalrous,  and  high-minded  than  his 


84  History  of  Puritmiism 

father,  but  withal  inheriting  in  aggravated  form 
his  despotic  principles,  favoritism,  duplicity,  and 
fondness  for  kingcraft.  His  father  in  his  vanity 
would  have  him  wedded  to  a  Popish  princess, 
whose  unquiet,  intriguing  spirit  wrought  him  only 
less  harm  with  his  people  than  her  superstitious 
religiosity  was  sure  to  do. 

James  had  got  on  ill  with  his  parliaments, 
Charles  got  on  worse  with  his — the  House  of 
Commons  being  resolute  for  redress  of  grievances 
in  Church  and  State.  Determined  to  assert  his 
prerogative  and  yield  up  nothing  to  the  popular 
wishes,  he  in  1628  dissolved  his  parliament,  and 
endeavored  for  twelve  years  to  govern  without 
the  advice  of  the  Houses.  To  do  this  he  had  to 
arrogate  increased  power  to  his  Privy  Council,  to 
resort  to  various  questionable  devices  in  order  to 
raise  supplies,  and  to  surrender  himself  to  the 
guidance  of  able  but  unscrupulous  men,  who 
thought  to  carry  out  in  England  the  policy  Riche- 
lieu had  pursued  with  success  in  France,  and  make 
their  master  absolute.  They  were  unscrupulous, 
perhaps,  rather  than  unprincipled,  but  their  great 
principle  was,  that  if  the  end  of  good  government 
was  attained,  it  mattered  little  what  were  the  means 
used  to  attain  it, — little  how  prerogative  was 
stretched,  or  ancient  liberties  were  invaded;  little 
how  the  spirit  of  the  constitution  was  violated  if 
any  semblance  of  respect  for  the  letter  of  it  could 


under  the  earlier  Stuart  Kiiigs.       85 

be  preserved.  They  were  generally  men  of  pure 
lives  and  by  no  means  destitute  of  high  purposes, 
generous  impulses,  or  genial  manners.  But,  like 
their  master,  they  lived  in  isolation,  and  were  un- 
conscious of  the  strength  of  the  forces  that  were 
ranging  themselves  against  them.  They  were 
committed  to  a  dangerous  game  in  which  success 
meant  ruin  to  the  liberties  of  their  country,  both 
civil  and  religious, — a  despotism  more  abject  than 
that  of  the  most  despotic  of  the  Tudors, — while 
failure  meant  ruin  to  their  master,  to  themselves, 
and  all  associated  with  them.  To  the  gentle  and 
tolerant,  yet  thoroughly  Protestant  Abbot  suc- 
ceeded in  the  see  of  Canterbury,  the  resolute, 
untiring,  overbearing  Anglo-Catholic  Laud,  who 
even  as  Bishop  of  London  had  been  chief  coun- 
sellor in  Church  affairs  during  Abbot's  declining 
years.  Laud  was  personally  blameless  in  life, 
vigilant  in  the  discharge  of  duty,  earnestly  religious 
according  to  his  light,  devoted  to  his  sovereign, 
almost  the  only  one  of  his  trusted  counselors  who 
was  above  taking  a  bribe  or  using  his  power  for 
purposes  of  mere  favoritism  or  self-aggrandize- 
ment ;  but  narrow-minded,  unscrupulous,  haughty, 
by  no  means  free  from  irascibility  and  vindictive- 
ness,    blindly    ritualistic,    and     cruelly    despotic.^ 

1  "  In  the  dull  immobile  face,  the  self-satisfied  mouth,  the 
rheumy  obstinate  eyes,  can  be  read  as  in  a  book  the  explanation 
of  his  character  and  the  tragedy  of  his  tnAr— Edinburgh  Ke- 


86  History  of  Puritanism 

For  years  he  was  the  king's  most  confidential 
adviser  in  State  as  well  as  in  Church  affairs.  He 
sought  and  found  able  and  unscrupulous  coadju- 
tors in  the  work  of "  harrying  "  Puritans  out  of 
the  Church  and  constitutionalists  out  of  the  State, 
setting  up,  in  lieu  of  their  ideal  of  regulated  free- 
dom, the  system  to  which  he  himself  gave  the 
name  of  thorough, — thorough  absolutism  in  the 
State,  thorough  despotism  in  the  Church.  He 
virtually  proscribed  and  stigmatized  as  Puritanism 
the  old  Augustinian  doctrines  which  his  prede- 
cessor not  only  tolerated,  but  approved,  and  for 
which  the  House  of  Commons  so  resolutely  con- 
tended. He  used  the  powers  of  his  high  office 
and  of  the  Courts  of  Star-Chamber  and  High 
Commission  with  a  rigor  and  savagery  unknown 
before,  condemning  to  life-long  imprisonment,  or 
to  cruel  mutilations,  or  ruinous  fines  men  whose 
offenses  did  not  justify  such  extreme  proceedings, 
and  meting  out  to  grave  divines,  practiced  lawyers, 
physicians,  and  scholars,  punishments  till  then 
reserved  for  the  lowest  class  of  felons  and  sowers 
of  sedition. 

The  indignities  perpetrated  on  Leighton,  Prynne, 
Burton,  and  Bastwick  are  well  known,  and  the 
liberation  of  these  sufferers  from  their  long  impris- 
onment, and  the  exhibition  of  their  mutilated 
faces  raised  to  its  height  the  popular  indignation 
against  Laud  and  his  accomplices.     Attempts  have 


tmder  the  earlier  Stuart  Kings.       87 

been  made  even  in  our  own  day  to  mitigate  the 
disgust  and  indignation  their  treatment  still 
awakens  by  questioning  whether  the  sentence  in 
its  full  extent  was  executed  in  each  case,  and 
whether  it  was  not  pronounced  and  the  fines  im- 
posed ^  rather  ///  tcrrorcni,  than  with  the  deliberate 
intention  of  being  carried  out  to  the  letter.  But  it 
is  a  matter  of  comparatively  minor  importance 
whether  Leighton  lost  one  ear  or  both,  whether 
he  had  to  stand  in  the  pillory  and  to  endure 
branding  and  scourging  on  one  occasion  or  two. 
The  natural  feeling  will  still  be  what  was  so  well 
expressed  in  later  years  by  that  son  whose  boyish 
letters,   found    in    his    father's    study,  were  by  a 

^  It  has  been  concluded  that  the  fines  imposed  were  seldom 
exacted,  as  they  are  not  entered  in  the  Exchequer  books  as  being 
paid.  But  considering  how  common  it  was  to  make  gifts  of  such 
casualities  to  court  favorites,  it  would  require  some  further 
evidence  than  the  negative  one  that  the  fines  are  not  entered  in 
the  Exchequer  books  to  prove  that  they  were  not  meant  to  be  ex- 
acted from  the  unfortunate  men,  so  far  as  the  means  they  possessed 
could  be  got  at.  In  fact,  from  what  we  know  of  the  venality  of 
many  of  the  privy  councillors  and  the  attempts  made  by  Bishop 
Williams  when  in  trouble  to  secure  their  favor,  we  seem  rather 
warranted  to  conclude  that  it  was  only  a  less  costly  matter  to  get  a 
fine  remitted  than  to  pay  it.  The  argument  for  disbelief  of  facts 
authenticated  by  contemporary  testimony  on  the  ground  of  omis- 
sions in  the  official  records  of  these  times  may  easily  be  carried  too 
far.  The  Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons  (vol.  ii.  p.  124)  cer- 
tainly mention  Leighton's  fine  and  "  the  cutting  off  his  earsy  See 
also  passage  in  Rutherford's  Letter  289  beginning,  "Who  can 
suffer  enough  for  such  a  Lord,"  and  referring  to  "  those  ears  you 
have  now  given  for  him." 


88  History  of  Puritanism 

refinement  of  cruelty  used  in  evidence  against 
him/ 

The  Archbishop's  argument  in  vindication  of 
the  course  he  followed  was  ingenious,  if  not  in- 
genuous :  that  harm — serious  harm — was  being 
done  to  religion  by  the  differences  so  long  toler- 
ated in  regard  to  minuter  matters  of  ritual  and 
church  arrangement,  and  still  more  by  the  em- 
bittered pamphlets  against  the  hierarchical  govern- 
ment of  the  Church,  and  the  persistent  obtruding 
of  those  Auo-ustinian  or  Calvinistic  doctrines  which 

o 

erewhile  had  been  generally  received  and  freely 
taught  in  the  universities  and  in  the  Church,  and 
that  there  was  no  remedy  for  this  but  in  absolute 
submission  and  unreserved  obedience  to  the  king, 
God's  appointed  vicegerent — and  to  the  injunc- 
tions issued  by  him  through  his  wise  and  trusty 
counselors  in  regard  to  all  these  things.  The 
course  he  followed,  as  Hallam  so  pertinently 
observes,  "  could  in  nature  have  no  other  tendency 
than  to  give  nourishment  to  the  lurking  seeds  of 
disaffection  in  the  English  Church.  Besides  re- 
viving the  prosecutions  for  nonconformity  in  their 
utmost  strictness  ...  he  most  injudiciously,  not 
to  say  wickedly,  endeavored  by  innovations  of  his 
own,  and   by  exciting  alarms   in   the   susceptible 

^  "  If  that  Persian  prince  could  so  prize  his  Zopyrus  wlio  was 
mangled  in  his  service,  how  much  more  will  tliis  Lord  esteem 
those  who  suffer  so  for  him  ?  " — Sermon  on  2  CoR,  v.  20- 


under  tJic  earlier  Stuart  Kinos.       89 

consciences  of  pious  men,  to  raise  up  new  victims 
whom  he  might  oppress.  Those  who  made  any 
difficulties  about  his  novel  ceremonies,  or  even 
who  preached  on  the  Calvinistic  side,  were  har- 
assed by  the  High  Commission  Court  as  if  they 
had  been  actual  schismatics.  The  resolution  so 
evidently  taken  by  the  court  to  admit  of  no  half 
conformity  in  religion  .  .  .  convinced  many  that 
England  could  no  longer  afford  them  a  safe  asy- 
lum. The  state  of  Europe  was  not  such  as  to  en- 
courage them  to  attempt  settling  on  the  Continent, 
though  Holland  received  them  kindly.  But  turn- 
ing their  eyes  to  the  newly  discovered  regions 
beyond  the  Atlantic  ocean,  they  saw  there  a  secure 
place  of  refuge  from  present  tyranny,  and  a 
boundless   prospect  for  future  hope. 

"  They  obtained  from  the  Crown  the  charter  of 
Massachusetts  Bay  in  1629.  About  350  persons,' 
chiefly  or  wholly  of  the  Independent  sect,  sailed 
with  the  first  fleet.  So  many  followed  in  the 
subsequent  years  that  these  New  England  settle- 
ments have  been  supposed  to  have  drawn  near 
half  a  million  of  money  from  the  mother  country 
before  the  civil  wars.  Men  of  higher  rank  than 
the  first  colonists  ....  men  of  capacious  and  com- 

^  Such  is  the  numl)er  given  by  Hallam,  but  tliis  is  ratlier  the 
number  of  Robinson's  congregation  in  Holland  than  of  that  por- 
tion (about  100)  which  actually  went  over  with  "  The  Mayflower." 
For  further  references  to  this  important  event  see  Appendix, 
Note  L), 


90  History  of  Puritanisfn 

manding  minds  formed  to  be  the  legislators  and 
generals  of  an  infant  republic,  were  preparing  to 
embark  for  America  [among  them  John  Hampden 
and  Oliver  Cromwell]  when  Laud,  for  his  own  and 
his  master's  curse,  procured  an  order  of  Council 
to  stop  their  departure.  So  far  were  these  men 
from  entertaining  schemes  for  overturning  the 
government  at  home,  that  they  looked  only  to 
escape  from  imminent  tyranny.  But  this  in  his 
malignant  humor  the  Archbishop  would  not  allow. 
Nothing  would  satisfy  him  but  that  they  should 
surrender  at  discretion,  soul  and  conscience,  to 
his  direction." 

That  in  fact  was  the  issue  now  unmistakably 
presented  by  him — surrender  of  soul  and  con- 
science to  his  direction — in  matters  not  of  ritual 
and  ceremony  only,  but  of  vital  Protestant  doc- 
trine too,  which  they  believed  to  be  founded  on 
the  Word  of  God,  and  to  have  been  acknowledged 
by  his  own  predecessors  to  be  so.  That  in  fact 
was  what  Puritanism  with  all  its  tenacity  was 
being  led  on  to  resist. 

Having  after  years  of  patient  and  untiring  labor 
at  last  succeeded,  outwardly  at  least,  in  moulding 
his  own  province  and  that  of  York  substantially 
in  accordance  with  his  wishes,  the  Archbishop 
turned  his  thoughts  to  the  other  dominions  of  the 
King  where  Puritanism  had  been  allowed  freer 
scope   or  treated  with   greater  indulgence,  as   if, 


under  tJic  earlier  Stuart  Ki. 

while  refusing  a  Cardinal's  hat  from  Rome,  he 
wished  to  be  indeed  vctiiti  papa  altcriiis  orbis.  Viy 
the  aid  of  the  talented  but  unscrupulous  Went- 
worth,  iiis  trusted  confidant  and  chosen  instrument 
in  the  work  of  repression,  he  succeeded  in  1634 
in  securing  the  adoption  of  a  new  and  much  more 
elaborate  code  of  canons  in  Ireland,  and  in  assim- 
ilating the  subscriptions  required  of  the  clergy 
there  to  those  required  of  the  clergy  in  the  Church 
of  England.  By  care  in  the  appointment  of 
bishops  for  the  future,  he  no  doubt  hoped  gradu- 
ally to  accomplish  his  purpose,  and  to  root  out 
the  Puritans  from  that  old  refuge  where  they  had 
so  long  found  shelter,  and  were  admitted  to  have 
done  good  service  in  upholding  the  Reformed 
faith  among  the  old  English  settlers  and  the  new 
Scottish  colonists.  This  trusted  agent  reports  with 
an  apparent  chuckle  how  adroitly  he  had  managed 
to  overreach  the  good  Archbishop  of  Armagh, 
who  wished  to  retain  in  their  old  honor  the  Irish 
Articles,  while  subscribing  Jiic  et  nunc  to  the 
English,  and  who  with  all  his  learning  and  sound 
Protestantism  was  no  match  in  diplomacy  for 
either  of  these  determined  schemers. 

Having  succeeded  thus  far  in  Ireland,  Laud 
turned  his  thoughts  all  the  more  wistfully  to 
Scotland — now  the  last  refuge  of  those  he  had 
so  persistently  hunted  down,  and  still  a  strong- 
jiold  of  Puritanism,  notwithstanding  the  changes 


92  History  of  Puritanism 

which  James  in  the  interest  of  absolutism  in 
Church  and  State  had  endeavored,  though  with 
but  partial  success,  to  introduce  in  the  govern- 
ment and  ritual  of  the  Church.  A  series  of  letters, 
printed  by  the  late  Mr.  David  Laing  in  the  Appen- 
dix to  his  invaluable  edition  of  Baillie's  Letters 
and  Journals,  show  what  pains  the  English  Pri- 
mate took  to  draw  reluctant  Scotch  bishops  on 
to  the  use  of  their  "  whites,"  and  to  countenance 
more  ornate  services  than  had  been  in  favor  in 
Scotland  ever  since  the  Reformation.  At  length 
he  resolved  the  time  was  come  to  provide  them 
with  stronger  meat,  and  he  thought  the  train  had 
been  well  laid  for  the  changes  he  contemplated  ; 
but  as  King  James  had  said  long  before,  "  he  knew 
not  the  stomach  of  that  people,"  and  perhaps  he 
recked  not  what  a  great  conflagration  this  train 
he  had  laid  was  to  light  up.  Their  Liturgy  or 
Book  of  Common  Order,  as  Knox  left  it,  or  even 
as  King  James  would  have  altered  it,  was  regarded 
by  him  as  no  meet  form  for  worshiping  the  Lord 
"  in  the  beauty  of  Holiness;"  their  form  of  admin- 
istering the  holy  communion,  even  if  the  act  of 
kneeling  were  more  generally  enforced,  was  in  the 
eyes  of  high  churchmen  sadly  defective  in  import- 
ant particulars;  and  their  forms  of  conferring  holy 
orders,  even  as  revised  under  King  James  in  1620, 
were  insufficient  to  convey  a  valid  mission.^  The 
*  "  In  the  admission  to  priesthood  the  very  essential  words  of 


under  the  earlier  Stuart  Kings.       93 

king,  he  said  (and  he  was  always  careful  to  put 
him  in  the  forefront  when  enjoining  or  advising 
what  he  knew  would  be  distasteful),  was  much 
troubled  to  hear  of  these  sad  blemishes  in  the 
Church  of  his  baptism.  He  might  quite  compe- 
tently have  provided  a  remedy  for  them  by  his 
prerogative  royal,  i.  e.  of  course,  by  the  advice  of 
Laud  himself,  who  was  really  the  keeper  of  his 
conscience  and  chief  counselor  in  affairs  of  State 
as  well  as  of  the  Church,  but  he  would  rather  that 
this  were  done  with  the  concurrence  of  the  bishops 
in  Scotland.  Thus  partly  by  flattery,  partly  by 
threats,  Spottiswoode,  the  wary  primate  of  Scot- 
land, and  his  older  colleagues  among  the  bishops, 
were  drawn  or  dragged  into  courses  of  which 
their  own  deliberate  judgment  did  not  approve, 
and  of  which  they  had  a  sad  presentiment  that 
they  would  put  in  peril  all  that  by  "  canny  con- 
voyance"  they  had  gained  during  the  previous 
thirty  or  forty  years. 

No  doubt  Laud,  when  on  his  trial,  insisted  that 
all  he  aimed  at  was  to  insure  uniformity  with  the 
Church  of  England,  and  the  acceptance  in  their 
entirety  of  the  English  Prayer-book,  Articles  and 
Canons.  But,  even  if  it  were  literally  so,  he  can- 
conferring  orders  are  left  out.  At  which  his  majesty  was  much 
troubled,  as  he  had  great  cause,  and  concerning  which  he  hath 
commanded  me  to  write,  that  either  you  do  admit  of  our  Book  of 
Ordination,  or  else  that  you  amend  your  own  in  these  two  gross 
oversights." — Laud  io  Wedderburn,  Bishop  of  Dunblane, 


94  Histo7^y  of  Puritanism 

not  be  absolved  from  gravest  responsibility.  The 
men  who  urged  a  somewhat  different  course  were 
the  younger  men,  whom  he  had  himself  favored 
and  promoted,  and  v/ho  could  have  effected  little 
with  the  king  without  his  tacit  or  open  acquies- 
cence. And  if  changes  were  to  be  pressed  at  all, 
there  was  a  good  deal  to  be  said  in  favor  of  the 
course  they  proposed,  namely,  that  there  should 
be  certain  differences  allowed  between  the  Litur- 
gies of  the  two  countries,  and  the  Scots  should 
not  be  asked  ecclesiastically  to  bow  their  necks 
purely  and  simply  to  the  yoke  of  England.  There 
was  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  it,  that  some  of 
these  differences  should  be  concessions  to  their 
invincibly  "  puritanic  "  predilections,  as  the  almost 
entire  exclusion  of  the  Apocrypha  from  the  table 
of  lessons,  the  uniform  substitution  of  the  word 
presbyter  for  priest  in  the  prayers  and  rubrics, 
the  adoption  of  the  new  (authorized)  English 
version  of  the  Bible  in  the  epistles,  gospels,  occa- 
sional versicles,  and  even  in  the  prose  Psalms  in- 
tended to  be  read  or  chanted,  the  more  especially, 
if  others  of  them  should  be  concessions  (no  doubt 
as  moderate,  and  in  appearance  as  harmless  as 
possible,)  to  the  Anglo-Catholic,  and  Romanizing 
parties  of  which  these  hot-headed  young  men  were 
pronounced  adherents,  and  to  foster  whose  tenden- 
cies was  the  real,  if  not  avowed,  object  of  this  policy.^ 

^  See  Appendix,  Note  E. 


under  the  earliei"  Stuart  Kings.      95 

A  book  of  canons,  in  several  respects  more 
severe  than  the  EngHsh — especially  in  prohibiting 
extemporary  prayers,  under  pain  of  deprivation — 
was  also  prepared,  and  was  authorized  by  royal 
authority,  even  before  the  Liturgy  which  it  en- 
joined was  published.  Thus  the  train  was  laid 
and  fired,  and  in  one  rash  hour  all  that  King 
James  and  King  Charles  had  succeeded  in  im- 
posing, all  that  Spottiswoode  and  his  brethren 
had  given  their  days  to  carry  out,  all  that  Laud 
and  Wentworth  had  given  their  lives  in  pawn  for, 
was  put  in  jeopardy.  Far  different  was  the  issue 
from  that  the  reckless  schemers  had  intended  and 
expected.  It  was  chiefly  disastrous  to  their  sov- 
ereign and  themselves,  spreading  dismay  and 
destruction  through  their  own  ranks,  not  through 
the  ranks  of  their  opponents.  The  English 
patriots  and  Puritans,  in  appearance  at  least,  had 
been  cowed  ;  those  who  had  taken  refuge  in  Ireland 
had  been  muzzled,  and  matters  had  indeed  reached 
the  last  extremity.  But  the  Scotch,  whose  stern 
persistence  has  never  failed  at  such  a  crisis,  proved 
equal  to  the  occasion,  and  fairly  turned  the  tide 
of  battle.  Their  perfcrvidiim  ingeniinn,  once  fully 
roused,  had  a  contagious  influence  on  the  friends 
of  Protestant  truth  and  Puritan  order  everywhere 
throughout  the  British  dominions. 

Over  the  events  which  then  followed  each  other 
so  rapidly  in  Scotland,  and  the  marvelous  revo- 


g6  History  of  Puritanism 

lution  in  which   they   issued,  I   must   not  hnger. 
They  are   famihar  to  you   all :  the   meetings   in 
Edinburgh    of    peers,    gentry,    commoners    and 
divines  ;  the  appointment  of  the  Tables  or  com- 
mittees  by   each    of   them;    their   remonstrances 
against  the  introduction  of  the  new  service-book  ; 
the  rejection  of  their  petitions  and  remonstrances  ; 
the   attempt   to    introduce   the    obnoxious  book, 
the   tumult  which    the    introduction   of   it   occa- 
sioned in  St.  Giles'  Kirk ;  the  renewal  of  the  Con- 
fession or  Covenant  originally   approved   by  the 
king's  father  in  1581,  with  certain  additions  suited 
to  the  new  crisis  ;  the  petition  for  a  free  and  lawful 
General   Assembly   to    determine   the   matters   in 
controversy,  the  tardy  compliance  with  the  prayer 
of  the  petition  and  the  suspension  of  the  orders 
respecting  the  ill-omened  book ;  the  preparation 
for  the  Assembly,  its  actual  meeting  in  the  High 
Kirk    or    Cathedral    of    Glasgow,    its    attempted 
dissolution  by  the  king's  Commissioner;    its  re- 
fusal to  dissolve  till  the  work  for  which   it  had 
been  summoned  was  done;  its  trial  and  judgment 
of    the    bishops    and    their    chief   supporters,   its 
declaration  of  the  nullity  of  the  Assemblies  which 
had  given  a  sort  of  sanction  to  the  hierarchy,  and 
its  restoration  of  the  old  presbyterian  government 
of  the   Church   as   it  had  been  ratified   by   King 
James  and  his  Parliament  in    1592;  the  attempt 
of  the  king  to  accomplish  by  force  what  he  had 


tmder  the  earlier  Shear t  Kings.       97 

in  vain  striven  to  effect  by  policy  and  proclama- 
tions ;  his  quailing  when  he  saw  the  covenanting 
host  on  Dunse  Law,  consenting  to  treat  with  them, 
and  promising  them  an  Assembly  and  Parliament 
in  which  their  grievances  should  be  duly  consid- 
ered and  redressed  ;  the  renewed  outbreak  of  hos- 
tilities when  neither  Assembly  nor  Parliament  was 
found  compliant  with  his  wishes — the  refusal  of 
his  English  Parliament, — at  last  brought  together 
again  and  known  ever  since  as  the  Short  Parlia- 
ment,— to  vote  a  subsidy  for  the  expenses  of  the 
war,  and  the  readiness  of  the  English  Convoca- 
tion— the  notorious  Convocation  of  1640 — to  do 
so ;  the  march  of  the  covenanting  army  into  the 
north  of  England,  the  successes  it  gained,  and 
the  permission  granted  it  to  winter  there ;  the 
despatch  of  Scottish  Commissioners  to  London 
to  conclude  a  new  treaty,  and  the  friendly  rela- 
tions then  established  between  them  and  the  lead- 
ing Puritans  of  the  south — all  these  important 
events,  following  each  other  almost  with  the  sud- 
denness of  a  dream,  are  narrated  at  length  in  the 
commonest  histories,  and  are  familiarly  known  to 
all  who  are  acquainted  in  any  measure  with  the 
story  and  fortunes  of  the  Kirk. 

Ere  the  negotiations  with  the  Scotch  could  be 
brought  to  a  conclusion  Charles  had  been  con- 
strained by  the  necessities  of  his  position  to  call 
another    Parliament,   which    has   become    famous 
7 


98  History  of  Puritanism. 

in  all  succeeding  time  as  the  Long  Parliament. 
It  was  summoned  for  the  3d  November  1640, 
on  which  day  Charles  once  more  occupied  the 
throne  of  his  ancestors,  surrounded  by  his  peers. 
The  Bishops  clad  in  rochet  and  chimere,  to  use 
the  words  of  Dr.  Stoughton,  "  once  more  occupied 
their  old  benches,  and  the  Speaker  of  the  House 
of  Commons  in  florid  diction  congratulated  the 
monarch  on  the  prosperity  of  his  realms.  Out- 
wardly, the  Church  like  the  State  looked  strong, 
but  an  earthquake  was  at  hand  destined  to  over- 
turn the  foundations  of  both."  A  storm  which 
had  been  long  gathering  was  now  to  burst  in 
pitiless  fury,  and  sweep  away  abuses  which  had 
defied  every  effort  made  to  reform  them.  In  my 
next  Lecture  I  shall  have  much  to  say  of  the 
doings  of  this  eventful  Parliament,  as  well  as  of 
the  proceedings  of  that  Assembly  of  Divines, 
which  it  summoned  to  its  assistance. 


LECTURE   IV. 

PREPARATION    FOR    AND    SUMMONING    OF    THE   WEST- 
MINSTER   ASSEMBLY. 

In  my  last  Lecture  I  gave  you  a  sketch  of  the 
history  of  Puritanism  under  the  earher  Stuart 
kings,  up  to  the  meeting  of  the  Parhament  which 
has  since  been  by  universal  consent  designated 
the  Long  Parliament.  It  met  on  the  3d  November 
1640,  and  continued  till  it  was  forcibly  dismissed 
by  Cromwell  in  1652.  It  was  brought  together 
again  after  the  death  of  the  Protector,  to  resume 
its  interrupted  work,  but  failed  to  secure  its  per- 
manence. On  6th  November  1640,  the  Commons, 
following  a  precedent  set  in  several  previous 
parliaments,  appointed  a  grand  Committee  of 
religion  consisting  of  all  the  members  of  the 
House,  and  this  not  as  a  mere  formality  but  with 
instructions  to  meet  from  week  to  week  for  serious 
business.  Various  petitions^  were  presented  by 
the  patriots  and  Puritans  outside  to  quicken  the 
zeal  of  their  friends  within  the   House  for  refor- 

^  E  159,  Speeches  and  passages  of  this  great  and  happy  Parlia- 
ment ^  etc.,  p.  161,  433,  436. 

99 


lOO    Preparation  for  and  Stimnioning 

niation,  and  in  particular,  one  signed  by  about 
15,000  citizens  of  London,  known  as  the  Root 
and  Branch  petition,  from  the  expression  occur- 
ring in  its  prayer,  that  the  hierarchy  might  be 
abohshed  **  with  all  its  dependencies,  roots  and 
branches."  A  counter  petition  was  presented 
affirming  that  episcopal  government,  as  it  is  in 
itself  the  most  excellent  government,  so  it  is  the 
most  suitable  ...  to  the  civil  constitution  and 
temper  of  this  state,  and  therefore  praying  it  may 
**  always  be  continued  and  preserved  in  it,  and  by 
it,  notwithstanding  the  abuses  and  corruptions 
which  in  so  long  a  tract  of  time  through  the 
errors  or  negligence  of  men  have  crept  into  it." 
The  petitions  were  duly  considered,  and  procedure 
taken  on  them  without  delay,  though  not  at  once 
to  the  extent  the  root  and  branch  petitioners  had 
desired.  Nineteen  grievances  were  tabulated,  and 
evidence  in  support  of  them  adduced  in  Committee, 
and  a  report  thereon  was  presented  to  the  House. 
Soon  after  the  House  of  Lords,  though  far  less 
under  puritan  influence  than  the  Commons,  also 
appointed  a  Committee  to  take  into  consideration 
all  innovations  in  the  church  "  concerning  re- 
ligion." The  Committee  consisted  often  bishops 
and  twenty  lay  peers,  under  the  presidency  of  Dr. 
Williams,  Bishop  of  Lincoln  and  Dean  of  West- 
minster, who,  like  many  other  victims  of  Laud's 
oppression,  had  just  been   released  from  prison. 


of  the  Westminster  Assembly.        loi 

It  had  power  "  to  send  for  what  learned  divines 
their  Lordships  shall  please  for  their  better  infor- 
mation." The  divines  named  expressly  by  the 
House  were  Archbishop  Ussher,  Dr.  Prideaux, 
soon  after  made  Bishop  of  Worcester,  Dr.  Ward, 
Professor  of  Divinity  at  Cambridge,  Dr.  Twisse 
of  Newbury,  and  Dr.  Hackett.  Those  added  by 
the  Committee  were  Drs.  Sanderson,  Holdsworth, 
Brownrigg,  F'eatley,  Burgess,  White,  Marshall, 
Calamy,  and  Hill — all  sound  Protestants,  and  men 
of  moderate  views — whose  names  appear  subse- 
quently in  the  list  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines. 
The  Conference  of  the  Lords'  Committee  with 
these  divines  lasted  for  six  days,  during  which 
they  had  solemn  debates  in  the  famous  Jerusalem 
Chamber,  and  were  always  entertained  by  Wil- 
liams "  with  such  bountiful  cheer  as  became  a 
bishop."  First  they  took  into  consideration  the  re- 
cent innovations  of  doctrine,  and  it  was  complained 
that  all  the  tenets  of  the  Council  of  Trent  had 
by  one  or  other  been  preached  and  printed  except 
those  regarding  the  king's  supremacy,  which  the 
state  had  made  it  treasonable  [to  question]  ;  that 
good  works  were  made  to  co-operate  with  faith 
for  justification  ;  that  private  confession,  enumer- 
ating particular  sins  [to  a  priest]  Avas  inculcated 
as  needful  to  salvation,  that  the  oblation  of  the 
elements  in  the  Lord's  Supper  was  held  to  be  a 
true  sacrifice ;  that  prayers  for  the  dead,  monastic 


I02     Prepa7'ation  for  and  Summoning 

vows,  Arminian  and  Socinian  errors,  were  incul- 
cated.     Secondly,   the   Committee    inquired   into 
matters   of  conformity   [to    the    ritual]    and   dis- 
covered that  candlesticks  were  placed  in  parish 
churches   on  the  altars   so   called,   that  canopies 
with  curtains,  in  imitation  of  the  veil  before  the 
Holy   of   Holies,   were  drawn   around   the  altar; 
that  a  credentia  or  side  table  was  made  use  of  dur- 
ing the  Lord's  Supper ;  that  a  direct  prayer  was 
forbidden  before  the   sermons,   [where   aforetime 
the  minister  had  been  at  liberty  to  pray  extem- 
pore,  or   use  a  precomposed  prayer  of  his  own, 
instead  of,  or  in  addition  to  the  bidding  prayer,] 
and  that  ministers  were  forbidden  to  expound  at 
large   the    catechism   to   their  parishioners,   [and 
enjoined  simply  to  teach   them  its  very  words]. 
And  thirdly,  they  consulted  about  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer ;  whether  some  legendary  saints 
ought  not  to  be  expunged  from  the  Calendar,  the 
Apocryphal  chapters  from  the  lessons,  and  some 
things  from  the  rubrics  and  offices  of  baptism,  mar- 
riage, and  burial.^ 

»  The  following  additional  statement  made  by  Dr.  Hill— the 
last-named  of  the  consulted  divines— in  his  sermon  before  the 
House  of  Commons  on  1st  July  1642,  goes  as  near  to  the  heart  of 
the  matter  as  an  earnest  Puritan  could  wish,  and  yet  it  might  all 
have  been  indorsed  by  the  most  conservative  reformers.  He 
compares  the  recent  state  of  England  to  that  of  Jerusalem  at  the 
time  when  Ezekiel  in  vision  saw  the  image  of  jealousy  set  up  in 
the  temple  of  the  Lord,  and  thus  enumerates  the  corruptions  which 
had  been  suffered  and  should  be  removed  ;  "  ist,  In  the  schools 


of  the  Westminster  Assembly.        1 03 

The  Committee  sat  till  the  middle  of  May,  when 
it  broke  up  without  concluding  anything.     Laud, 

of  the  prophets,  the  nurseries  of  the  church,  do  not  petitions  inform 
you  that  divers  have  there  chaffered  away  truth  for  errors  ?  Were 
Whitaker  and  Reynolds  then  in  vivis,  they  would  blush  to  see 
Bellarmine  and  Arminius  justified  by  many,  rather  than  confuted. 
2(1,  Remnants  of  former  corruptions  left  in  cathedral  churches  .  . 
called  mother  churches,  but  they  have  rather  proved  step-mothers, 
engrossing  the  maintenance  which  should  provide  the  word  of 
truth  for  other  souls.  What  pity  it  is  that  cathedral  societies 
which  might  have  been  colleges  of  learned  presbyters,  for  the 
feeding  and  ruling  city  churches,  and  petty  academies  to  prepare 
pastors  for  neighbor  places,  should  be  so  often  sanctuaries  for 
non-residents,  and  nurseries  to  so  many  drones!  3d,  Cast  your 
eyes  on  the  hundreds  of  congregations  in  the  kingdom  where 
millions  of  souls  are  like  to  perish  for  want  of  vision ;  truth  is  like 
to  perish  from  among  them,  by  soul-destroying  non-residents, 
soul-poisoning  innovators  or  soul-pining  dry-nurses.  3.  Improve 
your  power  to  help  forward  the  word  of  truth,  that  it  may  run  and 
be  glorified  throughout  the  land  :  1st,  Provide  that  every  con- 
gregation may  have  an  able  trumpet  of  truth;  2d,  especially  that 
great  towns  may  have  lectures — markets  of  truth  ;  3d,  afford  any 
faithful  Paul  and  Barnabas  encouragement,  yea  power,  if  Sergius 
Paulus  desire  to  hear  the  word  of  God,  to  go  and  preach,  though 
Elymas  the  sorcerer  should  be  unwilling.  Such  ambulato'y 
exercises  have  brought  both  light  and  heat  into  dark  and  cold 
corners  ;  4th,  What  if  there  be  some  evangelical  itinerant  preachers 
sent  abroad  upon  a  public  stock  to  enlighten  dark  countries  ?  " 

The  last  proposal  is  especially  worthy  the  notice  of  those  who 
think  that  the  idea  of  the  evangelistic  mission  of  the  church  is  a 
discovery  of  the  19th  century,  instead  of  being  one  which  has 
cropped  up  generally  in  periods  of  earnest  revival,  and  notably  in 
that  with  the  history  of  which  we  are  now  concerned.  Even  before 
this  sermon  was  preached  there  was  exhibited  in  the  High  Court 
of  Parliament  (E.  181,  No.  26),  a  petition  of  W.  C[astell],  .  .  . 
for  the  propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  America  and  the  West  Indies, 
which  petition  was  approved  by  seventy  able  English  divines  (in- 
cluding among  others  the  names  of  Prownrigg,  Sanderson,  Featly, 
Stanton,   Caryl,    Calamy,  Byfield,   White,    Marshall,    Burroughs, 


I04    Preparation  for  and  Sitinnwning 

by  that  time  in  confinement,  looked  on  its  appoint- 
ment with  alarm,  but  moderate  men  like  Lord 
Falkland  viewed  it  with  favor,  and  thought  that 
had  it  continued  its  labors,  it  might  have  been 
the  means  of  effecting  many  needed  reforms,  per- 
haps of  saving  the  church  and  the  monarchy. 
But  what  the  issue  would  have  been,  says  Fuller, 
is  only  known  to  Him  who  knew  what  the  men 
of  Keilah  would  have  done  with  David  had  he 
remained  among  them  till  Saul  came  down.  It 
was  the  last  chance  for  the  moderate  men  ere  the 
Revolution  attained  its  full  height,  and  the  chance 
was  thrown  away  by  the  imprudence  or  panic  of 
the  Bishops,  who  were  strongly  represented  on  the 
Committee.  The  tide  was  now  sweeping  in  with 
full  force  and  bearing  all  before  it.  Strafford  and 
Laud  had  been  impeached  and  committed  to  the 
Tower.  The  former  was  speedily  attainted  and 
beheaded,  the  latter  was  left  to  languish  for  a  time 
in  that  durance  to  which  he  had  consigned  many 
quite  as  worthy  men.  The  Irish  rebellion  had 
broken  out,  and  deeds  of  fiendish  cruelty  had  been 

Cawdrey,  Whitaker,  etc.),  also  by  Mr.  Alexander  Henderson  and 
some  other  worthy  ministers  of  Scotland  (including  Blair,  Baillie, 
Gillespie,  etc.).  Extracts  from  this  remarkable  petition  will  be 
found  in  Appendix,  Note  E.  Nay  even  an  additional  endowment 
scheme  was  propounded  about  the  same  time,  and  there  issued 
from  the  press  a  pamphlet  (E.  179)  entitled  Proposals  for  Good 
Works,  urging  inter  alia  the  provision  of  additional  maintenance 
for  ministers  and  lecturers,  and  the  erection  and  endowment  of 
new  churches  in  the  overgrown  parishes  in  the  suburbs  of  London. 


of  the  Westminster  Assembly.        105 

perpetrated  against  the  unoffending  Protestants — 
deeds  which  only  savages  or  madmen  could  have 
devised  and  executed.  The  Scotch  Commissioners 
were  on  the  spot,  urging  on  those  whose  old  hor- 
ror of  Popery  had  been  intensified  by  the  recent 
massacre,  to  get  quit  of  every  so-called  remnant 
of  Popery  in  their  Service-book,  and  of  every 
trace  of  it  in  their  doctrinal  teaching  and  church 
constitution,  and  finally  suggesting  that  a  larger 
and  more  formal  meeting  of  divines  should  be 
speedily  called  to  accomplish  these  things,  and, 
if  it  might  be,  to  undertake  the  grander  mission 
of  drawing  up  common  standards  for  the  churches 
of  the  three  kingdoms,  and  of  bringing  them  into 
closer  and  more  kindly  relations  with  each  other/ 

1  E.  157,  No,  2,  ATgiiments  given  in  by  the  Commissioners  of 
Scotland  unto  the  Lords  of  the  treaty,  persuading  conformity  of 
church  government  as  one  principal  means  of  a  continued  peace 
between  the  two  nations,  1641.  "  Our  desires  concerning  unity  of 
religion  and  uniformity  of  church-government  as  one  especial 
means  to  conserve  peace  in  his  Majesty's  dominions,"  With 
many  professions  that  they  do  not  wish  to  dictate  to  another  free, 
independent,  and  larger  kingdom  in  such  a  matter,  they  yet  urge 
with  all  possible  earnestness  those  considerations  which  should 
persuade  to  this.  "  It  is  to  be  wished  that  there  were  one  Con- 
fession of  Faith,  one  form  of  Catechism,  one  Directory  for  all  the 
parts  of  the  public  worship  of  God  ,  .  .  and  one  form  of  church- 
government  in  all  the  churches  of  his  Majesty's  dominions.  .  . 
This  doth  highly  concern  his  Majesty  and  the  weal  of  his  domin- 
ions, and  without  forcing  of  consciences  seemeth  not  only  possible 
but  an  easy  work.  .  .  We  do  not  presume  to  propound  the  form 
of  government  of  the  church  of  Scotland  as  a  pattern  for  the 
church  of  England,  but  do  only  represent  in  all  modesty  these 
few  considerations  according  to  the   trust  committed    unto   us." 


io6    Preparation  for  and  Summoning 

They  themselves  had  felt  that  even  in  Scotland 
they  must  not  fall  back  purely  and  simply  on  the 
stains  quo,  as  it  existed  before  the  recent  innova- 
tions were  pressed  on  them,  content  with  their  old 
Confession  and  Catechisms,  and  Book  of  Common 
Order,  but  that  further  safeguards  must  be  devised 
and  additional  securities  taken  against  the  danger 
of  any  recurrence  to  that  policy  which  had  wrought 
them  such  havoc  and  woe. 

They  were  already  indeed  looking  to  Henderson 
to  lead  them  in  the  preparation  of  new  standards ; 
but  he,  either  from  the  felt  difficulties  of  the  task,  or 
from  his  intense  desire  to  draw  into  closer  union  all 
to  whom  the  cause  of  Protestant  truth,  and  constitu- 
tional liberty,  in  Church  as  well  as  State,  was  dear, 
preferred  that  the  work  should  be  done  on  a  wider 
theatre  and  grander  scale  than  Scotland  could  offer. 
All  I  know  of  the  history  of  this  great  man  inclines 
me  to  believe  that  if  there  was  a  truly  patriotic 
leader  among  them,  one  more  free  from  narrowness 

These  considerations  in  brief  were  (i),  that  their  government  was 
the  same  as  that  of  the  reformed  generally, — Beza's  testimony  in 
its  favor  being  quoted ;  (2)  yet  they  had  all  along  been  harassed 
by  the  bishops  of  England;  (3)  The  reformed  churches  hold  their 
government  to  be  jure  divino,  while  most  of  those  who  plead  for 
episcopacy  grant  that  it  is  only  jure  htimano  ;  (4)  The  church  of 
Scotland  was  bound  by  covenant  to  her  form,  while  England  was 
perfectly  free;  (5)  Thus  "will  the  design  of  Kmg  James  be  car- 
ried out  in  a  legitimate  way,  and  the  king  not  only  have  peace  and 
his  due  place  in  all  the  churches  of  his  own  dominions,  but  his 
greatness  shall  be  enlarged  abroad  by  his  becoming  the  head  of  all 
the  Protestants  in  Europe." 


of  the  Westminster  Assembly.        107 

and  provincialism  than  another,  or  more  prepared 
to  allow  free  play  for  considerable  diversities  of 
thought  and  modes  of  administration  in  a  com- 
prehensive Presbyterian  Church,  it  was  he, — in 
fact  that  the  closer  union  of  the  churches  in 
Britain  was  chiefly  valued  by  him  as  a  step  toward 
securing  the  closer  union  of  all  the  Reformed 
Churches.  But  his  noble  ideas  were  at  times 
dwarfed  and  pared  down  ;  sometimes  by  the  blind- 
ness and  narrowness  of  lesser  men  among  his 
own  countrymen,  sometimes  by  the  jealousies 
aroused  against  him  in  the  south  as  an  alien  and 
a  Scot,  and  even  he  was  but  dimly  conscious  of 
the  immense  difficulty  of  the  task  before  him, 
arising  from  the  divided  state  of  opinion  in  Eng- 
land, and  the  bitter  animosities  of  the  various 
parties  to  each  other.  Already  in  the  year  1640 
it  had  begun  to  be  felt  and  expressed  that  the 
friends  of  the  Reformation  in  both  countries  must 
make  common  cause  if  they  would  hope  to  suc- 
ceed in  securing  it  against  the  insidious  policy  of 
Laud  and  his  abettors.  In  a  letter,  brought  down 
by  Henderson  to  the  Scottish  General  Assembly, 
from  a  number  of  "  their  gracious  brethren  of  the 
ministry  at  London  and  about  it,"  the  expression 
had  been  used  that  "  the  Churches  of  England 
and  Scotland  seemed  to  be  embarked  in  the  same 
bottom,  to  sink  or  swim  together;"  they  had  the 
same  enemies,  and  must  unite  in  defense  against 


io8    Preparation  for  and  Summoning 

their  assaults.  In  the  Grand  Remonstrance  which 
the  House  of  Commons  began  to  prepare  in  the 
autumn  of  1641,  and  had  finished  before  the  first 
of  December,  they  declared  that  while  they  had 
no  wish  "  to  abolish  all  church-government  and 
leave  every  man  to  his  own  fancy  for  the  service 
and  worship  of  God,  or  to  let  loose  the  golden 
reins  of  discipline,"  they  yet  desired  that  some 
changes  should  be  made  on  the  arrangements 
previously  subsisting,  and  that  there  might  be  "  a 
general  Synod '  of  the  most  grave,  pious,  learned 
and  judicious  divines  of  this  island  (not  of  England 
only),  assisted  by  some  from  foreign    parts   pro- 

1  "We  are  poisoned  in  many  points  of  doctrine,  and  I  know 
no  antidote,  no  recipe,  for  cure  but  one — a  well-chosen  and  well- 
tempered  Synod  and  God's  blessing  thereon  :  this  may  cure  us ; 
without  this,  in  my  poor  opinion,  England  is  like  to  turn  itself 
into  a  great  Amsterdam,  and  unless  this  council  be  very  speedy  the 
disease  will  be  above  the  cure." — Speech  of  Sir  Edivard  Deering 
(E.  197,  p.  105).  About  the  same  time  appeared — Heads  or 
Reasons  for  ivJiich  a  General  Council  ought  to  be  called  together 
in  England.  The  reasons  were  that  "  (i)  Matters  of  chief  debate 
necessary  to  be  decided  (lest  atheism  and  libertinism  increase)  may 
be  cleared  ;  (2)  Fundamentals  of  Christian  truth  and  faith  may  be 
fully  and  invincibly  settled  by  common  consent;  (3)  The  public 
profession  of  divine  worship  may  be  brought  to  some  religious 
uniformity  so  far  as  is  expedient  for  the  amiable  correspondence  of 
several  churches  one  with  another  and  so  fit  for  the  edification  of 
all  Christians;  (4)  The  means  of  propagating  the  gospel  and 
kingdom  of  Christ  toward  those  that  are  yet  in  darkness  may  be 
agreed  upon  and  set  apart  for  the  advancement  of  God's  glory" 
(E.  206,  No.  14).  In  E.  170  various  petitions  are  printed,  praying 
for  the  calling  of  an  Assembly  of  Divines  of  the  three  kingdoms  to 
explain  the  doctrine  and  reform  the  government  of  the  Church, 
that  truth  "  may  hew  out  a  way  to  peace  and  unity." 


of  the  Westminster  Assembly.        1 09 

fessing  the  same  religion  with  us,  to  consider  all 
things  necessary  for  the  peace  and  good  govern- 
ment of  the  Church."  If  they  still  hesitated  to 
give  more  definite  expression  to  the  wish  which 
lay  nearest  to  the  heart  of  Henderson  that  Scot- 
land should  be  formally  invited  to  send  deputies 
to  the  Synod  and  its  purpose  be  enlarged,  that 
Common  Standards  might  be  prepared  by  it  for 
the  churches  of  the  three  kingdoms,  it  is  clear  that 
by  this  time  they  had  resolved  the  Assembly 
should  be  something  more  than  a  mere  English 
Synod,  something  like  what  Cranmer  long  before 
had  so  eagerly  desired.  If  what  was  resolved  on 
by  it  should  be  enacted  in  the  first  instance  for 
England  only,  it  was  meant  it  should  be  so  after 
counsel  with  others  and  should  form  a  model 
which  other  churches  might  view  with  favor  as 
fitted  for  the  guidance  of  a  thoroughly  reformed 
church,  and  likely  to  conduce  to  more  intimate 
and  friendly  relations  among  them  all.  But  open 
expression  had  been  given  to  the  wish  that  Scot- 
land should  take  formal  part  in  the  proposed 
Assembly  at  latest  in  the  communication  addressed 
by  them  to  the  General  Assembly  which  met  in 
July  1642.  For  in  reply  to  that  communication 
the  Assembly  ventured  to  refer  to  what  Scotland 
had  done,  in  earlier  and  in  more  recent  times,  to 
bring  about  a  closer  union  between  the  reformed 
churches,   and    "  anew    urged    on    their    English 


no    Preparatioji  for  and  Summoning 

brethren  that  the  work  of  reformation  should  be- 
gin with  uniformity  of  church-government."  There 
was  no  hope,  in  their  opinion,  of  unity  in  rehgion 
or  of  one  Confession  of  Faith,  one  form  of  worship, 
and  one  Catechism,  till  there  was  one  form  of 
ecclesiastical  government.  They  accepted  the 
invitation  given,  and  assured  the  Parliament  that 
they  would  gladly  do  their  part  in  this  great  crisis, 
and  indeed  had  already  appointed  Commissioners 
to  prosecute  the  work  of  uniformity  with  England 
and  to  endeavor  to  agree  upon  Common  Standards 
for  the  churches  of  both  kingdoms.  The  views 
of  the  Scotch  gained  the  powerful  support  of  Pym, 
in  an  able  speech  he  made  on  30th  September  at 
a  Conference'  of  the  two  Houses  for  union  of  the 
three  kingdoms  in  one  Directory  or  Form  of 
Prayer,  Catechism,  etc.,  and  that  able  and  judicious 
divines,  not  only  from  Scotland  but  also  from  other 
reformed  churches,  should  be  asked  to  join  the 
Assembly.  Several  months  before  this  date  the 
Houses  had  actually  begun  to  make  arrangements 
for  the  meeting  of  the  proposed  Synod  or  As- 
sembly of  Divines.  A  "  gracious  message  "  (PI 
290)  had  come  from  the  king,  14th  February  1641, 
intimating  that  *'  because  his  Majesty  observes 
ereat  and  different  troubles  do  arise  in  the  hearts 
of  his  people  concerning  the  government  and  lit- 
urgy of  the  Church,  his  Majesty  is  willing  to  de- 

^  Journals  of  House  of  Commons,  vol.  ii,  p.  789. 


of  the  Westminster  Assembly.        \  1 1 

clare  that  he  will  refer  the  whole  consideration  to 
the  wisdom  of  his  Parliament  which  he  desires 
them  to  enter  into  speedily."  This  almost  neces- 
sitated the  Parliament  calling  such  an  assembly  of 
divines  as  they  had  been  contemplating.  Accord- 
ingly, on  the  19th  April  1642,  the  House  of  Com- 
mons ordered  that  the  names  of  such  divines  as 
shall  be  thought  fit  to  be  consulted  with  in  the 
matter  of  the  Church  be  brought  in  to-morrow 
morning.  On  the  following  morning  the  divines 
recommended  for  nine  of  the  English  counties, 
and  on  succeeding  days  those  for  the  rest  of  the 
counties,  as  also  for  the  city  of  London,  the  Uni- 
versities of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  the 
Channel  Islands  were  approved ;  and  on  the  25th 
the  list  was  deemed  completed.  Two  were  ap- 
pointed for  each  county  in  England,  for  each  of 
the  Universities  and  for  the  Channel  Islands, 
one  for  each  county  in  Wales,  and  four  for  the 
city  of  London.  The  general  opinion  has  been 
that  the  divines  were  recommended  by  the  mem- 
bers of  Parliament  representing  each  county  and 
the  boroughs  within  it  (the  House  in  one  or  two 
instances,  however,  insisting  on  a  vote  being  taken 
on  the  names  proposed),  and  the  balance  of 
evidence  seems  to  me  to  favor  that  opinion.  It 
seems  likely  that  some  further  communication 
had  been  made  to  the  king  before  the  9th  of  May, 
when  the  first  bill  for  calling  the  Assembly  was 


1 1 2     Preparation  for  and  Sitnimoning 

formally  brought  into  the  House  or  before  it 
passed  the  third  reading  ;  for,  as  I  have  said  else- 
where, in  a  pamphlet  bearing  date  i6th  May,  1642, 
and  entitled,"  His  Majesty's  resolution  concerning 
the  establishment  of  religion  and  church-govern- 
ment," it  is  stated  that  he  "  hath  consented  that 
the  main  matters  of  difference  which  have  occa- 
sioned all  these  distractions  shall  be  framed  and 
discussed  by  a  number  of  grave,  wise,  and  religious 
divines  which  shall  be  thought  fit  by  the  Houses 
of  Parliament :  every  county  electing  two  for  this  so 
grave  and  weighty  a  business,  that  so  all  things 
being  according  to  God's  true  Word  scanned  and 
examined  by  the  judicious  and  religious  judgments 
of  these  worthy  persons  the  truth  may  appear ; 
light  and  instruction  may  be  given  unto  authority, 
and  by  their  power  an  uniformity  of  government 
and  worship  agreeable  to  God's  Word  may  be 
settled  in  the  Church."  This  resolution  of  his 
Majesty  does  not  seem  to  have  been  persevered 
in,  or  to  have  borne  any  practical  fruit, — the 
fortune  of  war  being  then  in  his  favor,  and  the 
counsels  of  the  more  moderate  of  his  advisers 
being  overborne.  The  bill,  after  passing  the 
House  of  Commons,  was  amended  in  the  House 
of  Lords  by  the  addition  of  fourteen  divines  named 
by  the  Upper  House.  These  were  generally  mod- 
erate or  conservative  men  ;  several  of  them  were 
royalists,  and  one  a  pronounced  Arminian. 


of  the  Westminster  Asseiitbly.        1 1 3 

The  list  was  forthwith  pubHshed  and  has  ap- 
pended to  it  the  following  significant  declaration 
by  the  Houses,  of  date  9th  April,  1642:  "The 
Lords  and  Commons  do  declare  that  they  intend 
a  due  and  necessary  reformation  of  the  govern- 
ment and  liturgy  of  the  Church,  and  to  take  away 
nothing  in  the  one  or  other  but  what  shall  be  evil 
and  justly  offensive  or  at  least  unnecessary  and 
burthensome  :  And  for  the  better  effecting  thereof 
speedily  to  have  consultation  with  godly  and 
learned  divines  :  And  because  this  will  never  of 
itself  attain  the  end  sought  therein,  they  will 
therefore  use  their  utmost  endeavors  to  establish 
learned  and  preaching  ministers  with  a  good  and 
sufficient  maintenance  throughout  the  whole  king- 
dom, wherein  are  many  dark  corners  and  misera- 
bly destitute  of  the  means  of  salvation,  and  many 
poor  ministers  without  necessary  provision."' 
They,  as  well  as  the  ministers,  had  set  their  hearts 
on  something  higher  and  better  than  any  change 
in  the  external  forms  of  government  and  worship 
as  necessary  to  insure  the  reformation  they  de- 
sired, and  the  reclamation  of  the  careless,  the 
ignorant,  and  the  godless.  They  believed  the 
consciences  of  such  could  only  be  effectually 
reached  by  the  earnest  preaching  of  the  gospel 
salvation — not  by  any  mechanical  drilling  in 
forms,  however  venerable  and  imposing. 

^  E.  144,  and  also  146. 


1 1 4    Preparatio7i  for  and  Siimmonirig 

The  bill  as  amended  had  passed  both  Houses 
by  the  first  of  June,  and  only  waited  the  king's 
assent  to  make  it  law,  and  insure  the  meeting  of 
the  Assembly  in  the  following  month.  The  king's 
assent  being  withheld,  a  second  and  a  third  bill 
were  brought  in  before  the  close  of  the  year ;  but 
all  was  in  vain,  for  the  king  would  not  pass  either 
of  them.  At  last,  as  Mr.  Masson  tells  us,  "  hope- 
less of  a  bill  that  should  pass  in  the  regular  way 
....  the  Houses  resorted  in  this  as  in  other  things 
to  their  peremptory  plan  of  ordinance  by  their  own 
authority.  On  13th  May,  1643,  an  Ordinance  for 
calling  an  Assembly  was  introduced  in  the  Com- 
mons, which  Ordinance  after  due  going  and  coming 
between  the  two  Houses  reached  its  maturity  on 
the  1 2th  June,  when  it  was  entered  at  full  length 
on  the  Lords'  Journals."  It  was  printed  on  the 
13th  and  again  on  the  20th  June.  The  Ordinance 
is  given  at  length  in  most  editions  of  the  Con- 
fession of  Faith,  and  I  need  not  occupy  your  time 
by  quoting  it  here,  as  in  its  final  form  it  is  re- 
printed and  prefixed  to  these  lectures,  along  with 
a  full  list  of  the  members  of  the  Assembly  and  a 
somewhat  more  detailed  account  of  them  than  is 
supplied  in  the  Ordinance.^ 

1  A  remarkably  condensed  and  accurate  account  of  them  will  be 
found  in  Masson's  Life  of  Milton,  vol.ii.  pp.  515.  524,  and  vol.  iii. 
pp.  16,  17.  Reid's  Lives  of  the  Westminster  Divines  vfoiM  re- 
quire to  be  recast  in  the  light  of  subsequent  researches  and  brought 
up  to  date. 


of  the  Wcshninst€7'  Assembly.        1 1  5 

The  purposes  for  which  the  Ordinance  declares 
that  the  Assembly  was  called  were  "  for  settling 
of  the  government  and  liturgy  of  the  Church  of 
England,  and  for  vindicating  and  clearing  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  said  church  from  false  aspersions 
and  interpretations,  as  should  be  found  most 
agreeable  to  the  Word  of  God,  and  most  apt  to 
procure  and  preserve  the  peace  of  the  church  at 
home,  and  nearer  agreement  with  the  Church  of 
Scotland  and  other  Reformed  churches  abroad." 
It  authorizes  the  members  to  discuss  such  of  these 
matters  as  shall  be  proposed  to  them  by  both  or 
either  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  but  prohibits 
them,  without  consent  of  the  Houses,  from  divulg- 
ing the  same  by  printing,  writing,  or  otherwise. 
It  provides  that  Dr.  Tvvisse  of  Newbury  shall  be 
Prolocutor,  that  a  sum  of  four  shillings  a  day 
shall  be  allowed  to  each  of  them  to  defray  their 
expenses,  and  that  all  and  every  of  them  shall  be 
free  of  any  penalty  for  non-residence  or  absence 
from  their  cure ;  and  finally,  that  they  shall  not 
"assume  or  exercise  any  jurisdiction,  power,  or 
authority  ecclesiastical  whatsoever,  or  any  other 
power  whatsoever,  other  than  is  herein  particularly 
expressed." 

On  account  of  the  concluding  restrictions  some 
have  doubted  whether  the  Westminster  Assembly 
was  really  entitled  to  the  name  of  a  Synod  ec- 
clesiastical at  all.     But  it  may  be  said  in  reply  to 


1 1 6    Preparation  for  and  Snmmoning 

their  doubts,  ist,  That  it  was  at  least  entitled 
to  rank  as  an  advisory  Synod  of  the  kind  speci- 
fied in  its  own  Confession  of  Faith,  chap.  xxxi. 
§  2 ;  as  much  so,  at  any  rate,  as  the  ministers 
who,  at  the  request  of  the  Scottish  Parliament, 
drew  up  the  Old  Scotch  Confession  and  the  First 
Book  of  Discipline  in  1 560-1,  or  the  divines  who, 
in  Edward  VI. 's  reign,  drew  up  the  Forty-two 
Articles;  2d,  That  in  respect  of  the  limitations 
imposed  by  the  Ordinance,  it  only  resembled  an 
English  Convocation  which  cannot  proceed  to 
business  without  the  sanction  of  the  crown,  nor 
claim  authority  for  its  decisions  till  they  have 
been  approved  by  the  sovereign.  Even  in  regard 
to  the  method  adopted  in  selecting  the  members 
of  the  Assembly  it  did  not  want  an  able  defender 
in  the  author  of  a  remarkable  treatise  entitled 
"  Consilium  dc  refonnandd  Ecclesid  AngUcand!'  ^ 
This  author  maintained  at  considerable  length, 
that,  while  in  ordinary  circumstances  the  clergy 
were  rightly  left  to  elect  their  own  representatives 
in  Synods,  yet  in  cases  where  the  clergy  were 
largely  corrupted,  and  the  object  was  to  reform 
the  corruptions  that  had  crept  in  among  them,  it 
was  quite  competent  for  the  magistrate,  in  the 
exercise  of  his  own  judgment  to  select  the  mem- 

1  "  Suggestum  araplissimo  coetui,  authoritate  augustissimi  Con- 
sessus  Regis  et  Regni  ordinum,  indicto,  ad  consultandum  de  rebus 
gravissimis  in  religione." — Londini  1643  (E  56,  12). 


of  the  Westminster  Assembly.        1 1 7 

bcrs  from  the  sounder  part  of  the  clergy/  and  that 
in  circumstances  such  as  those  in  which  the  Eng- 
hsh  Church  then  was,  the  magistrate,  in  claiming 
to  choose  the  members  claimed  nothing  but  what 
was  consonant  with  right  reason,  and  clearly  con- 
firmed by  usage,  and  what  had  actually  been 
practiced  in  the  reigns  of  three  most  powerful 
sovereigns,  Edward  VI.,  Elizabeth,  and  James  I. 
The  author  of  this  treatise  evidently  belonged  to 
the  most  conservative  school  of  reformers,  and 
cautioned  the  Parliament  to  have  regard  to  the 
best  interests  of  the  country,  and  not  to  attempt 
changes  which  the  nation  generally  was  not  ripe 
for,  and  would  not  permanently  bear.  On  this 
ground  he  ventured  to  advocate  the  continuance 
of  a  liturgy  with  some  provision  for  free  prayer, 
and  of  a  moderate  Episcopacy,  in  which  the  bishop 
should  not  be  of  a  different  order  but  only  of  a 
different  degree  from  the  presbyters, — should  be 
their  mouth  or  executive  rather  than  their  head 
or  sovereign   ruler, — and   should   neither   ordain, 

1  "Cum  enim  illustrissimi  senatores  observassent  Archiepisco})i 
Laudi  ejusque  sectatorum  artibus,  non  in  uno  loco  Angliaesuffectos 
viros  de  religione  male  sentientes  et  Papismo  addictos,  prudenter 
cavent  ne  ab  ejusmodi  deputantibus  ejusdem  farinas  deputati  sub- 
nascantur.  ...  An  altaricola  qui  citari  debet  ad  Synodum,  rati- 
onem  redditurus  malesanae  doctrinae  in  vulgus  a  se  sparsse,  allega- 
bitur  ut  Synodi  fiat  membrum  ?  "  The  folly  of  the  other  way  had 
been  sufficiently  evinced  by  the  results  of  the  recent  and  then 
exploded  Convocation  of  1640.  The  course  followed,  the  author 
has  shown,  was  not  unprecedented,  and  therefore  not  so  revolution- 
ary as  some  would  make  it. 


1 1 8     Preparation  for  and  Summoning 

nor  depose,  nor  excommunicate  without  their 
assent.  He  did  not  favor  the  introduction  so 
called  of  lay  elders/  and  he  ascribes  the  power 
of  the  keys  jointly  to  the  pastors  and  to  the 
Christian  magistrate. 

More  than  one  treatise  advocating  similar  views 
was  published  soon  after  the  Assembly  had  begun 
its  sittings,  notably  one  by  Bishop  Hall  on  a  lower 
platform  than  that  he  assumed  in  the  Smectym- 
nuan  controversy.  But  whether  for  good  or  evil, 
the  question  of  the  continuance  or  discontinuance 
of  Episcopacy  may  be  said  to  have  been  virtually 
determined  by  the  Parliament  in  the  preamble  of 
the  Ordinance  calling  them  together,  and  never 
really  to  have  been  a  subject  of  formal  debate  in 
the  Assembly  itself 

With  all  acknowledged  limitations  of  its  scope, 
however,  the  Westminster  Assembly  was  in  fact 
a  great  ''power  or  institution  in  the  English  realm 
in  those  unsettled  times — existing  side  by  side 
with  the  Long  Parliament,  in  constant  conference 
and  co-operation "  ^  with  its  leaders,  generally 
influencing  or  moulding  ecclesiastical  legislation, 
and  treated  with  unusual  deference  even  when  its 

1  Among  the  '*  adiaphora"  which  are  not  to  be  regulated  by 
canons  are  reckoned  such  things  as  the  situation  of  the  communion 
table,  the  dress  or  gown  of  the  minister,  the  sign  of  the  cross  in 
baptism,  and  kneeling  in  receiving  the  communion. 

2  Life  of  Milt  on  in  connection  with  the  history  of  his  tit?ie,  vol. 
ii.  p.  5H. 


of  the  Westminster  Assembly.        1 1 9 

remonstrances  were  unacceptable — maintaining  a 
good  understanding  between  the  Parliament  and 
the  earnest  citizens  of  London,  who  were  its  real 
arm  of  strength,  and  gaining  and  retaining  a  moral 
influence  over  the  pious  part  of  the  people,  which 
neither  Cromwell's  temporary  supremacy  nor  the 
more  lasting  persecutions  of  the  second  Charles 
should  suffice  entirely  to  destroy.  Taking  it  all 
in  all,  it  was  to  leave  its  mark  so  deeply  and 
permanently  on  a  large  portion  of  our  Anglo- 
Saxon  race,  that,  as  Professor  Masson  has  justly 
observed,  it  "  ought  to  be  more  interesting  to 
them  still  than  the  history  of  the  Councils  of 
Constance,  Basle,  Trent,  or  any  other  of  the  great 
ecclesiastical  Councils  more  ancient  and  oecumen- 
ical, about  which  we  still  hear  so  much."  ^ 

In  one  important  respect,  as  I  have  said  else- 
where,^ it  resembled  the  celebrated  council  of 
Nicaea — the  most  ancient  oecumenical  of  all. 
"  Not  a  few  of  its  members  had  been  honored  to 
suffer  on  account  of  the  truths  to  which  they 
clung,  and  many  of  them  had  the  courage  after- 
ward to  brave  suffering,  ignominy,  and  penury 
rather  than  renounce  their  creed  and  their  views 
of  church  polity  and  discipline.  Nay,  they  may 
be  said,  by  the  very  act  of  their  meeting,  to  have 

1  Life  of  Milton  in  connection  7vith  the  history  of  his  time,  vol. 
ii.  p.  515. 

2  Introduction  to  Minutes  of  Westminster  Assembly,  p.  x.xxii. 


1 20    Prepa7'ation  for  and  Summoning 

put  their  livings,  if  not  their  Hves,  in  jeopardy ;  " 
and  so  to  have  given  the  strongest  possible  proof 
of  their  deep  sense  of  the  necessity  of  the  work  to 
which,  notwithstanding  the  prohibition  of  the 
king,  and  his  mutterings  of  treason,  they  ad- 
dressed themselves  during  these  troubled  years. 
The  Assembly  was  designed  to  include  among 
its  members  adherents  of  all  the  chief  parties 
among  English  Protestants,  with  the  exception  of 
that  of  Archbishop  Laud,  whose  innovations  and 
despotic  government  had  been  one  main  cause  of 
the  troubles  that  had  arisen,  both  in  church  and 
state.  Almost  all  the  clerical  members  named 
upon  it  were  in  Episcopalian  orders,  most  of 
them  were  graduates  in  Arts,  not  a  few  of  them 
graduates  in  Divinity,  either  of  Oxford  or  Cam- 
bridge. Three  or  four  were  bishops,  five  after- 
ward rose  to  be  so,  and  several  others  were  known 
to  be  favorable  to  the  continuance  of  Episcopacy 
and  a  liturgy,  and  some  of  them  to  side  with  the 
king  rather  than  with  the  parliament.  Many  were 
known  to  favor  Presbytery.  A  place  was  found 
among  the  members  for  some  of  the  most  promi- 
nent ministers  of  the  French  Protestant  Churches 
in  England,  for  one  of  Dutch  or  German  descent, 
for  two  or  three  Irishmen,  and  for  some  who,  to 
avoid  the  persecutions  of  Laud,  had  left  their 
native  land  for  a  time,  and  acted  as  pastors  to  the 
congregations  of  English  exiles  and  merchants  in 


of  the  IVestminster  Assembly.        1 2 1 

Holland.  Invitations  to  send  commissioners  were 
addressed  to  the  Church  of  Scotland,  and,  it  is 
said  also,  to  the  congregational  churches  of  New 
England. 

If  few  of  the  royalist  divines  ventured  to  appear 
in  their  places,  yet  Dr.  Featley  and  one  or  two 
more  did  attend  pretty  regularly  for  a  time,  and 
the  doctor  took  a  prominent  part  in  the  debates 
on  the  revision  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles — de- 
bates probably  as  important  in  a  doctrinal  point 
of  view  as  any  that  occurred  at  a  later  stage.  If 
Ussher,  the  greatest  of  these  divines,  was  "  con- 
spicuous by  his  absence,"  the  Assembly  at  least 
gave  the  most  unmistakable  proof  of  its  high 
re^rard  for  him  and  of  its  earnest  desire  to  com- 
prehend  within  the  reconstituted  church  those 
who  shared  his  doctrinal  views,  by  drawing  its 
statements,  on  so  many  of  the  most  important 
doctrines,  from  the  articles  prepared  by  him  in 
161 5   for  the  Church  of  Ireland. 

Yet  most  various  estimates  have  been  formed 
of  the  merits  of  the  divines  and  of  the  value  of 
their  work.  Clarendon  and  several  of  the  satirists 
of  the  age  have  spoken  of  them  with  contempt 
and  scorn,  and  others  have  accorded  them  only 
faint  praise.  But  Bishop  Hall  was  not  ashamed 
to  address  them  as  his  learned  and  reverend  breth- 
ren, nor  the  five  dissenting  brethren  frankly  to 
acknowledcre  their  worth.     Richard   Baxter,  who 


1 2  2     Preparation  for  and  Siumnoning 

was  perhaps  as  competent  as  any  of  their  con- 
temporaries to  give  an  impartial  verdict,  does  not 
hesitate  to  affirm  that  "  the  divines  there  congre- 
gated were  men  of  eminent  learning  and  godli- 
ness, ministerial  ability  and  fidelity;  and  being 
not  worthy,"  he  modestly  adds,  "  to  be  one  of 
them  myself,  I  may  the  more  freely  speak  that 
truth  which  I  know,  even  in  the  face  of  malice  and 
envy,  that,  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge  by  the 
information  of  all  history,  .  .  .  the  Christian  world 
since  the  days  of  the  apostles  had  never  a  Synod 
of  more  excellent  divines."  This,  it  has  been  well 
said  by  Dr.  Stoughton, "  is  high  praise,  but  it  comes 
nearer  the  truth  than  the  condemnatory  verdicts 
pronounced  by  some  others.  The  Westminster 
divines  had  learning,  scriptural,  patristic,  scholas- 
tical  and  modern,  enough  and  to  spare,  all  solid, 
substantial,  and  ready  for  use.  .  .  .  They  had  a  clear 
firm  grasp  of -evangelical  truths.  The  godliness  of 
the  men  is  proved  by  the  spirit  of  their  writings 
and  by  the  history  of  their  lives.  Their  talents 
and  attainments  even  Milton  does  not  attempt  to 
deny."  Hammond  admits  the  learning  of  many. 
Hallam,  no  less  competent  a  judge,  admits  that 
"  they  were  perhaps  equal  in  learning,  good  sense, 
and  other  merits  to  any  Lower  House  of  Convoca- 
tion that  ever  made  a  figure  in  England."  Indeed 
in  two  important  respects  we  may  say  that  they 
had  the  advantage  of  any  Lower  House.    There 


of  the  Westminster  Assembly.        123 

were  called  in  to  the  aid  of  the  divines  a  number 
of  the  laymen  distinguished  among  their  fellows 
in  Parliament  as  statesmen  or  scholars,  and  not 
unacquainted  with  Theology.  And,  when  under 
the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  the  original 
purpose  of  the  Assembly  was  extended,  there  were 
associated  with  these  English  divines  and  laymen 
some  of  the  most  distinguished  of  the  Scottish 
ministers  and  elders.  Hence  it  is,  I  think,  that 
their  work  has  stood  the  test  of  time,  and  is  still 
held  in  honor  by  the  Presbyterian  Churches,  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 

As  I  have  said  elsewhere,^  even  the  twenty 
names  of  special  eminence  with  which  a  recent 
critic  has  credited  them  constitute  a  larger  pro- 
portion of  the  whole  than  may  at  first  sight  appear, 
for  they  are  the  names  of  men  who  were  regular 
in  their  attendance,  and  prominent  in  the  discus- 
sions, and  they  form  at  least  a  third  of  those  who 
were  so.  But  more  may  fairly  be  claimed  for 
them  and  several  of  their  companions  than  that 
critic  is  disposed  to  concede.  Dr.  William  Twisse, 
the  Prolocutor,  was  a  man  not  only  of  subtle  and 
speculative  genius,  but  also  of  profound  and  varied 
learning.  He  was  one  of  the  most  influential 
theologians  of  his  day,  held  in  honor  by  the 
Reformed  Churches  on  the  Continent  as  well  as 

1  Minutes  of  Westminster  Assembly,  p.  xxxiii.,  etc.,  article 
<' Westminster  Assembly"  in  Johnson's    Universal  Cydopadia. 


124    Pi'eparation  for  and  Summoning 

by  those  in  Britain.  Sir  John  Savile,  who  had 
sought  the  assistance  of  the  ever-memorable  John 
Hales  for  his  edition  of  Chrysostom,  did  not 
disdain  to  call  in  the  aid  of  Twisse  in  preparing 
for  the  press  Bradwardine's  great  work,  Dc  Causa 
Dei  contra  Pelagium.  Bishop  Hall — himself  a 
royalist  and  resolute  defender  of  the  hierarchy — 
says  of  him,  that  he  was  "  a  man  so  eminent  in 
school  divinity  that  the  Jesuits  have  felt,  and  for 
aught  I  see,  shrunk  under  his  strength."  Yet 
with  all  his  eminence  he  did  not  claim,  nor,  proud 
as  his  brethren  were  of  him,  did  they  consent  to 
mould  their  Confession  according  to  his  peculiar 
views  either  as  regards  the  order  of  the  Divine 
decrees  or  the  nature  of  justification,  or  as  to  the 
power  of  God  to  pardon  sin  without  requiring  any 
atonement  for  it.  He  had  suffered  greatly  in  the 
war  from  the  royalist  soldiers,  and  though  Pro- 
locutor of  the  Assembly,  and  held  in  honor  by  the 
Parliament,  he  died  "  in  great  straits." '  Dr.  Edward 
Reynolds  was  a  divine  "eloquent,  learned,  cau- 
tious," and  that  may  have  been  the  reason  why  the 
Assembly  devolved  on  a  committee  of  which  he  was 

*  The  satirists  of  the  day  are  never  weary  of  bantering  the 
divines  about  their  four  shillings  hire.  But  up  to  the  time  of 
Twisse's  death  this  had  been  very  irregularly  paid,  as  also  were 
the  emoluments  of  the  sequestrations  they  held  in  town.  Baillie 
says  (ii.  196)  many  had  to  leave  for  want  of  means.  When  some 
partial  payments  were  made  to  the  Assembly,  Dr.  Burgess  and 
some  others  declined  their  share  that  there  might  be  a  little  more 
for  those  in  greater  need. 


of  the  Westminster  Assembly. 


12 


convener  the  adjusting  of  those  much-maligned 
sentences  in  their  Confession  regarding  predes- 
tination and  pretention.  He  was  one  of  the  most 
active  and  influential  members  of  the  Assembly, 
and  possibly  we  owe  to  him  its  directory  for 
Thanksgiving  after  Sermon,  as  well  as  the  Gen- 
eral Thanksgiving  added  to  the  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer  after  the  Restoration.  Dr.  Edmund 
Calamy  was  a  more  liberal  and  cautious  Calvinist 
still ;  and  no  one  can  read  the  minutes  of  the 
Assembly's  debates  on  the  extent  of  redemption 
without  acknowledging  that  he  was  a  genuine  dis- 
ciple of  Ussher  and  Davenant,  and  feeling  thankful 
that  he  and  some  others  of  the  same  school  deemed 
it  their  duty  to  cast  in  their  lot  with  their  non- 
conformist brethren  in  1662  when  Reynolds  and 
Wallis  abandoned  them.  Lightfoot,  Coleman,  and 
Seaman  were  all  distinguished  oriental  scholars, 
and  Gataker  was  not  only  a  distinguished  Hebrew 
and  Greek  scholar,  but  also  one  of  the  first  in 
Britain  to  write  in  defence  of  the  opinion  then 
much  questioned,  but  now  generally  received,  that 
the  Greek  of  the  New  Testament  was  of  a  differ- 
ent character  from  that  of  the  classical  authors, 
and  by  its  many  Hebraisms  gave  unmistakable 
evidence  of  the  nationality  and  training  of  the 
writers.  He  was  the  friend  of  Ussher  and  Selden, 
and  after  them  was  accounted  the  most  learned 
man   then    in   England.       He   was   distinguished 


126     Preparation  for  and  Sttmmoning 

by  the  quaint  richness  of  his  style  and  the  argu- 
mentative power  of  his  controversial  works.  In 
the  Antinomian  Controversy,  for  his  treatises 
on  which  he  repeatedly  received  the  thanks  of 
the  Assembly,  Mr.  Marsden  says  that  he  an- 
swered the  leaders  as  Hooker  answered  his  adver- 
sary, "  with  the  same  profound  love  of  truth,  the 
same  ponderous  and  varied  learning,  the  same 
gentle  spirit,  .  .  .  and  the  same  devoted  adher- 
ence to  evangelical  doctrine."  Arrowsmith,  "  the 
man  with  the  glass-eye,"  and  Tuckney,  the  kindly 
correspondent  of  Whichcot,  Professors  of  Divinity 
at  Cambridge,  were  not  only  clever  college  tutors, 
but,  as  several  of  their  published  w^orks  clearly 
indicate,  men  of  high  scholarship  and  consider- 
able mental  breadth,  and  force  of  character.  With 
them  must  be  conjoined  Dr.  Joshua  Hoyle,  the 
friend  of  Ussher,  and  Professor  of  Divinity  first  at 
Dublin  then  at  Oxford,  admitted  by  Wood  to  have 
been  "  profound  in  the  faculty  of  divinity  and  in 
patristic  learning  ;"  and  Dr.  John  Wallis,  Savilian 
Professor  of  Geometry  at  Oxford,  whose  attain- 
ments as  a  theologian  and  metaphysician  were 
only  cast  into  the  shade  by  his  greater  attainments 
as  a  mathematician.  He  was  the  friend  of  Boyle, 
Gregory  and  Newton,  the  untiring  opponent  of 
Hobbes  and  the  Socinians,  one  of  the  authors  as 
well  as  of  the  earliest  expositors  of  the  Shorter 
Catechism,  and  probably  one  of  the  last  surviving 


of  the  Westminster  Assembly.        127 

officials  of  the  great  Assembly.  The  age  was 
confessedly  an  age  of  great  preachers.  "  The  pul- 
pit of  the  metropolis,"  as  Marsden  tells  us,  "  dis- 
played a  galaxy  of  light  and  genius  such  as  it  had 
never  before,  and  perhaps  has  never  since,  ex- 
hibited. The  printed  sermons  of  the  great  Puritan 
j)reachers  .  .  .  sufficiently  vindicate  their  reputa- 
tion. They  were  no  adventurers.  They  had  been 
brought  up  in  the  Church  of  England ;  they  were 
entitled  to  its  best  preferments  ;  and  they  might 
have  had  them  in  their  youth  from  Laud,  in  their 
gray  hairs  from  Charles  II.,  had  not  their  own 
consciences  forbidden."  In  the  first  rank  of  these 
there  fall  to  be  numbered  the  following  members 
of  the  Assembly  : — Dr.  William  Gouge, ''  the  father 
of  the  London  Puritan  ministers,"  and  the  author 
of  a  laborious  commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  who  shunned  promotion  as  eagerly  as 
others  seemed  to  court  it,  and  yet  on  whose 
preaching  Ussher  and  other  scholars  then  con- 
gregated in  the  metropolis  were  pleased  from 
time  to  time  to  attend  ;  Dr.  Thomas  Manton,*  the 
author  of  an  equally  laborious  commentary  on 
Psalm  cxix.,  "  in  whom  clear  judgment,  rich  fancy, 
and  happy  eloquence  met;"  Stephen  Marshall, 
whose  impressive  eloquence  is  said  to  have 
secured  him  greater  influence  with  the  Long  Par- 
liament than  ever  Laud  enjoyed  with  the  Court 
1  But  see  footnote,  p.  xx. 


128    Prepai'atio7i  for  and  Swnmoning 

of  Charles ;  Calamy,  who  "  dehghted  in  that  ex- 
perimental strain  of  discourse  which  ever  touches 
the  hearts  of  men,"  and  was  greatly  beloved  by 
the  merchant  princes  of  the  city;  Palmer,  '*  gracious 
learned  little  Palmer,"  as  Baillie  somewhat  famil- 
iarly terms  him,  who  could  preach  to  purpose  in 
French  as  well  as  in  English,  was  the  best  cate- 
chist  in  England,  and  one  of  the  most  earnest  and 
faithful  of  its  college  masters — to  whom  are  now 
ascribed  the  "  Paradoxes  "  long  attributed  to  Lord 
Bacon ;  Burroughes  and  Greenhill,  "  the  morning 
and  the  evening  stars  of  Stepney ;"  Joseph  Caryl, 
author  of  a  great  commentary  on  the  book  of  Job, 
and  long  popular  with  the  learned  audience  of 
Lincoln's  Inn  ;  and  Dr.  Thomas  Goodwin,  eminent 
as  a  theological  writer  and  one  of  the  most  suc- 
cessful expository  preachers  of  the  age.  These 
are  not  more  shadowy  to  the  cultured  even  yet 
than  those  our  critic  names,  and  in  those  anxious 
times  many  earnest  spirits  rejoiced  in  their  light, 
and  extolled  them  among  preachers  "  as  the  apple 
tree  among  the  trees  of  the  wood,"  under  whose 
shadow  they  sat  with  great  delight,  and  whose 
fruit  they  found  sweet  and  pleasant  to  their  taste. 
"  I  could  name,"  says  one  who  pleaded  earnestly  for 
them,  though  he  did  not  cast  in  his  lot  with  them, 
"the  Paul  and  the  Apollos  and  the  Peter  that 
preached  to  the  heart;  the  Barnabas  and  the 
Boanerges ;    the   friends  of  the  bridegroom   that 


of  the  Westminster  Assembly.        129 

wooed  and  besought  us  and  would  not  be  denied 
till  our  souls  had  received  Christ  Jesus  the  Lord. 
Some  of  them   are  at   rest   in   the   Lord,  and   let 
their    names    be    blessed,   and  others    are   in   the 
cloud  and  storm  and  warfare,  and  to  add  bonds  to 
their  many  afflictions  is  no  small  unkindness  to 
religion."    To  these,  when  the  Solemn  League  and 
Covenant  was  entered   into,  there  were  added,  as 
I  said,  the  very  elite  of  the  Scottish  ministers  and 
elders  : — Alexander  Henderson,  whose  statesman- 
like abilities,  sagacity,  and  culture,  even  royalists 
admit ;  Samuel  Rutherfurd,  one  of  their  most  im- 
pressive preachers  and  most  learned  divines,  who 
was  twice   invited  to  a  theological   chair  in   Hol- 
land ;  George  Gillespie,  the  prince  of  disputants, 
who  "  with  the  fire  of  youth,  had  the  wisdom    of 
age  ;"  and  the  consequential,  but  much  esteemed 
Robert  Baillie,  who  has  embalmed  in  graphic  nar- 
rative both  their  serious  debates  and  their  lighter 
gossip  ;  together  with  Johnstone  of  Warriston  and 
the  great  Marquis   of  Argyll,  who  afterward  suf- 
fered on  account  of  their  principles  ;   Loudon,  the 
accomplished    Chancellor    of    the    kingdom,    and 
Chancellor  of  its  principal  university,  the  soldierly 
Meldrum,and  the  engaging  young  Lord  Maidand, 
afterward  the  confidant  both  of  Sharp   and  Leigh-' 
ton.     Robert  Douglas,  the  silent,  sagacious,  mas- 
terful man,  who  was  joined  with  them  in  commis- 
sion, could  not  be  spared  from  the  duties  of  leader- 


13 


o    Preparation  for  and  Summoning 


ship  at  home,  but  he  assisted  and  cheered  them  by 
his  letters/  maintained  good  understanding  be- 
tween them  and  the  Church  in  Scotland,  and  in 
their  absence  came  to  occupy  a  place  among  his 
brethren  almost  as  unique  as  that  of  Calvin  among 
the  presbyters  of  Geneva. 

It  was  then  no  commonplace  Assembly  which 
the  Parliament  of  England  had  indicted  to  meet 
at  Westminster  on  ist  July  1643 — no  gathering 
of  ignorant  or  imperfectly  educated  divines,  of 
narrow-minded  fanatics  or  one-ideaed  enthusiasts, 
but  of  men  fully  competent  for  the  work  intrusted 
to  them,  and  worthy  of  all  confidence  therein. 

It  included  not  a  few  who  had  already  gained 
a  name  and  fame  for  themselves,  several  who 
were  yet  to  leave  their  impress  on  the  age,  or  on 
posterity,  and  many  who  at  least  were  to  commend 
themselves  and  their  work  by  holy,  consistent,  self- 
denying,  laborious  Christian  lives.  It  was  meant 
to  be  as  comprehensive  as  the  accepted  theology 
of  the  Reformation  would  at  all  permit,  as  tolerant 
as  the  times  would  yet  bear.  If  its  members  had 
one  idea  more  dominant  than  another  it  was  not,  as 
they  are  sometimes  still  caricatured,  that  of  setting 
forth  with  greater  one-sidedness  and  exaggera- 
tion the  doctrines  of  election  and  pretention  (for 

^  These  letters  and  those  of  the  Commissioners  in  London  are 
now  printed  in  the  two  volumes  of  the  Miniitts  of  the  Commission 
of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  recently  pub- 
lished by  the  Scottish  History  Society. 


of  the  Westminster  Assembly.        1 3 1 

they  did  little  more  as  to  these  mysterious  topics 
than  repeat  what  Ussher  had  already  formulated), 
but  that  of  setting  forth  the  whole  scheme  of  re- 
formed doctrine  in  harmonious  development  in  a 
form  of  which  their  country  should  have  no  cause 
to  be  ashamed  in  presence  of  any  of  the  sister 
churches  of  the  Continent,  and  above  all  in  a  form 
which  would  conduce  greatly  to  the  fostering  of 
Christian  knowledge  and  Christian  life.  That  in 
some  measure  this  idea  was  realized,  impartial 
historians  are  now  beginning  to  admit,^  and  we 
hope,  in  our  remaining  lectures,  to  show. 

1  "  It  forms  the  most  important  chapter  in  the  ecclesiastical  his- 
tory of  England  during  the  seventeenth  century.  Whether  we 
look  at  the  extent  or  ability  of  its  labors,  or  its  influence  upon 
future  generations,  it  stands  first  among  Protestant  councils." — 
Schaff' s  Creeds  of  Christendom,  vol.  i.  p.  728.  See  also  Masson  as 
already  quoted,  p.  119. 


LECTURE   V. 

THE  OPENING  OF  THE  WESTMINSTER  ASSEMBLY  ;  ITS 
PROCEEDINGS  AND  DEBATES  WHILE  ENGAGED  IN  RE- 
VISING THE  ENGLISH  ARTICLES  OF  RELIGION,  AND 
THE    SOLEMN    LEAGUE    AND    COVENANT. 

In  my  last  Lecture  I  continued  my  sketch  of 
the  history  of  EngHsh  Puritanism  from  the  meet- 
ing of  the  Long  Parhament  down  to  the  meeting 
of  the  Westminster  Assembly.  I  gave  you  a  suc- 
cinct account  of  the  lengthened  negotiations  be- 
tween the  king  and  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament 
about  the  calling  of  the  Assembly.  I  told  you 
that  it  was  finally  summoned  by  an  ordinance  of 
the  two  Houses  passed  on  the  12th  and  printed  on 
the  13th,  and  again  on  the  20th,  of  June  1643,  and 
that  it  was  appointed  to  meet  on  the  ist  of  July 
ensuing.  On  the  24th  of  June  two  supplementary 
ordinances  ^   were  issued,  the  one  appointing  the 

1  "  It  is  this  day  ordered  by  the  Lords  and  Commons  in  Parha- 
ment assembled,  that  the  meeting  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines  with 
some  members  of  both  Houses  of  Parliament  shall  be  on  Satm-day, 
the  first  of  July  1643,  at  nine  of  the  clock  in  the  morning,  in  the 
chapel  commonly  called  King  Henry  the  Seventh  his  chapel,  in 
the  city  of  Westminster.  Whereof  all  parties  concerned  are  to 
take  notice,  and  to  make  their  appearance  accordingly."  ''  It  is 
132 


opening  of  tJic  Westminster  Assembly.  133 

meeting-  to  be  at  nine  o'clock  on  the  morning  of 
the  day  named,  the  other  ordering  prayers  to  be 
offered  in  all  churches  for  the  blessing  of  God  on 
the  Assembly. 

Two  days  before  this  the  meeting  had  been 
prohibited  by  a  proclamation  from  the  king  at 
Oxford.  It  has  not  been  my  lot  to  meet  with  the 
proclamation  itself,  but  I  have  seen  the  very  full 
account  given  of  it  in  Merciiriiis  Auliais — the  Court 
paper  of  the  day,  and  I  subjoin  the  more  import- 
ant part  of  it.  After  a  long  and  bitter  preamble 
adverting  to  the  many  artifices  which  had  been 
used  by  some  factious  persons  to  alter  the  whole 
frame  and  constitution  of  the  Church,  complaining 
of  the  unprecedented  ordinance  for  calling  an  ir- 
regular Assembly  of  Divines,  without  his  authority 
and  against  his  liking,  and  speaking  unworthily  of 
those  to  whom  a  few  years  later  he  professed  his 
willingness  to  submit,  with  a  few  additions,  the 
decision  of  the  question  of  church  reform,  he  pro- 
ceeds as  follows:  ''his  Majesty  considering  that 
according  to  the  laws  of  this  kingdom  no  synod 

this  day  ordered,  etc.,  That  all  ministers  in  their  several  churches 
on  Wednesday  next  at  the  public  fast,  and  at  all  other  times  after- 
ward in  their  prayers  before  their  sermons,  shall  earnestly  and  par- 
ticularly pray  for  the  special  assistance  and  blessing  of  God  upon 
the  Assembly  of  Divines  and  others  appointed  to  meet  at  West- 
minster on  Saturday  the  first  day  of  July  next,  to  be  consulted  with 
by  both  Houses  of  Parliament  on  matters  concerning  religion. 
And  that  this  order  be  forthwith  printed  and  sent  to  all  parish 
churches."     (E.  62,  Nos.  I  and  2.) 


1 34   Opening  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  : 

or  convocation  of  the  clergy  ought  to  be  called 
but  by  his  authority,  nor  any  canons  or  constitu- 
tions made  or  executed  but  by  his  Majesty's 
license  first  obtained  to  the  making  of  them,  and 
his  royal  assent  granted  to  put  the  same  in  execu- 
tion, on  pain  that  every  one  of  the  clergy  doing 
the  contrary  and  thereof  convicted  suffer  imprison- 
ment and  make  fine  to  the  king's  will,  doth  strictly 
inhibit  and  forbid  all  and  every  person  named  in 
that  pretended  Ordinance  to  assemble  and  meet 
together  to  the  end  and  purpose  there  set  dovv^i, 
declaring  further  the  said  Assembly  (if  they  shall 
convene  without  his  Majesty's  authority)  to  be 
illegal,  the  acts  thereof  not  to  be  binding  on  his 
subjects,  and  that  he  will  proceed  severely  against 
all  those  who,  after  such  a  gracious  warning,  shall 
presume  to  meet  together  by  color  of  the  said 
pretended  Ordinance."  (E.  59,  No.  24.)  The  pro- 
clamation was  commanded  to  be  published  in  all 
churches  and  chapels  in  England  and  Wales.  It 
may  be  doubted  if  the  command  was  extensively 
obeyed,  but  publicity  was  at  once  given  to  such  a 
glaring  breach  of  repeated  professions  and  prom- 
ises by  the  parliamentary  paper  of  the  day  in  the 
following  half  regretful,  half  contemptuous  terms: 
Friday,  June  30th  :  "  The  reports  from  Oxford  are, 
that  a  proclamation  hath  been  published  there  to 
prohibit  the  Assembly  of  Divines  here  upon  the 
1st  of  next  month,  wherein,  as  it  is  said,  they  are 


Its  Pj'occedings  and  Debates.        135 

vehemently  threatened  to  have  all  their  ecclesias- 
tical livings  and  promotions  taken  from  them  if 
they  disobey  these  injunctions.  Which  if  it  be 
true  we  must  not  expect  to  have  the  Protestant 
religion  either  maintained  or  propagated  from 
thence,  since  evil  counselors  can  so  soon  frustrate 
good  promises  for  that  purpose,"  Thus  the  mem- 
bers named  to  be  of  the  Assembly  knew  that  it 
was  at  the  risk  of  their  liberty  and  livings,  and 
under  threat  of  that  terrible  penalty  of  prcmunirc 
that  they  resolved  to  obey  the  Ordinance  of  the 
two  Houses. 

Yet  on  July  ist,  the  day  appointed  for  their 
assembling,  a  goodly  number  had  the  courage  to 
meet  together  in  the  appointed  place.  Conform- 
ing to  the  custom  of  the  English  Convocation,  in 
whose  room  they  were  virtually  surrogated,  they 
first  met  for  divine  service  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
and  both  Houses  of  Parliament  adjourned  early  in 
the  forenoon  that  their  members  also  might  be 
present  on  the  occasion.  The  following  is  the  quaint 
notice  of  this  meeting  given  in  No.  25  of  the  news- 
paper already  referred  to :  "  On  Saturday  last  the 
Assembly  of  Divines  began  at  Westminster  accord- 
ing to  the  Ordinance  of  both  Houses  of  Parliament, 
when  Dr.  Twisse  of  Newbury  in  the  County  of 
Berks,  their  Prolocutor,  preached  on  John  xiv.  and 
1 8th,  "I  will  not  leave  you  comfortless,  I  will 
come  unto  you," — a  text  pertinent  to  these  times 


136   O paling  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  : 

of  sorrow,  anguish,  and  misery,  to  raise  up  the 
drooping  spirits  of  the  people  of  God  who  He 
under  the  pressure  of  Popish  wars  and  combus- 
tions." (E.  59.)  The  chronicler  forbears  to  relate 
any  of  the  points  of  the  said  sermon,  because  he 
supposes  it  will  be  published  in  print  for  the  satis- 
faction and  comfort  of  all  who  may  desire  to  read 
it,  but  to  the  annoyance  and  regret  of  posterity  the 
sermon  had  either  not  been  published  or  has  now 
completely  disappeared.^  The  writer  then  contin- 
ues :  "  The  number  that  met  this  day  were  three 
score  and  nine,  the  total  number  being  (including 
the  members  of  both  the  Houses  of  Parliament, 
which  are  but  thirty)  one  hundred  and  fifty-one, 

1  The  very  day  the  Assembly  met,  however,  a  pamphlet  was 
published  with  the  title  The  English  Pope,  etc.,  with  an  epistle  to 
the  reverend  divines  now  convened  by  authority  of  Parliament,  in 
which,  after  reference  to  the  slanders  of  the  royalists,  they  are 
addressed  thus  encouragingly  :  "  Be  of  good  courage,  ye  that  have 
the  honor  to  be  of  this  Assembly.  Fear  not  the  name  of  traitors 
while  you  give  judgment  for  loyalty,  nor  the  name  of  Anabaptists 
while  you  propugn  piety,  nor  the  name  of  schismatics  while  you 
settle  unity.  If  they  believed  the  calumnies  they  circulate  against 
you,  it  would  have  been  better  they  had  forwarded  your  meeting 
than  procured  proclamation  declaring  it  treason,  but  they  do  not 
but  fear  you  will  disappoint  all.  Be  you  therefore  the  more  cour- 
ageous for  this,  and  if  you  cannot  totally  eradicate  all  those  doc- 
trines of  division  which  the  prelates  have  sowed  among  the  good 
wheat,  yet  denounce  against  them  and  publish  your  detestation  of 
them;  and  if  you  cannot  yet  erect  a  perfect  form  of  discipline  by 
reason  of  the  secret  wars  made  upon  you  and  the  sinews  of  author- 
ity withheld  from  you,  yet  present  us  with  some  models  of  it,  that 
the  world  may  see  how  far  you  are  from  affecting  anarchy  and  con- 
fusioru"     (E.  53,  No.  13.) 


Its  Proceedings  and  Debates.        137 

whereof  if  forty  meet  the  first  day,  it  maketh  the 
Assembly  vahd  according  to  the  Ordinance." 
Lightfoot,  who  probably  was  present  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  Assembly,  supplies  the  additional 
information  that,  besides  the  members  of  the 
two  Houses  and  the  divines  named  in  the  Ordi- 
nance, there  was  also  a  great  congregation  in 
the  Abbey  Church,  and  that  after  the  service 
there  all  the  members  of  Assembly  present 
went  into  the  gorgeous  chapel  of  Henry  VH. 
This  place  appointed  for  their  meeting  was 
the  place  where  the  Convocation  of  1640,  no- 
torious for  its  forlorn  attempt  to  carry  out 
the  policy  of  "  thorough  "  despotism  in  Church 
and  State,  had  met.  There  the  Ordinance  was 
read  and  the  names  were  called  over  according  to 
the  custom  long  observed  in  our  Assemblies,  with 
the  results  already  indicated.  Lightfoot  further 
tells  of  "  divers  speeches  being  made  by  divers  " 
— doubtless,  inter  alia,  with  the  view  of  following 
up  what  the  Prolocutor  had  done  to  encourage 
the  members  in  the  great  w^ork  to  which  they  had 
been  called  notwithstanding  the  opposition  with 
which  they  were  threatened ;  and  finally  he  adds 
that  "the  Parliament  not  having  as  yet  framed  or 
proposed  any  work  for  the  Assembly  suddenly 
to  fall  upon,  it  was  adjourned  till  Thursday  follow- 
ing." To  show  how  intently  the  movement  was 
watched  from  Oxford,  I    may  add  the  notice  of 


138    opening  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  : 

this  day's  proceedings  contained  in  the  court 
newspaper  for  Friday,  July  7th  :  "  It  was  adver- 
tised this  day  that  the  Synod,  which  by  the  pre- 
tended Ordinance  of  the  two  Houses  was  to  begin 
on  the  1st  of  July,  was  put  off  till  the  Thursday 
following,  being  the  sixth  of  this  present  month, 
that  matters  might  be  prepared  for  them  where- 
upon to  treat,  it  being  not  yet  revealed  to  my  Lord 
Say,  Master  Pym,  and  others  of  their  associates 
in  the  Committee  for  religion,  what  gospel  'tis  that 
must  be  preached  and  settled  by  these  new  evan- 
gelists. Only  it  is  reported  that  certain  of  the 
godly  ministers  did  meet  that  day  in  the  Abbey 
Church  to  a  sermon,  and  had  some  doctrines  and 
uses,  but  what  else  done,  and  to  what  purpose  that 
was  done,  we  may  hear  hereafter."  The  day 
before  this  was  published,  the  adjournment  had 
been  terminated.  Certain  carefully  framed  instruc- 
tions and  rules  for  regulating  the  procedure  of  the 
Assembly  having,  after  consultation  with  some  of 
the  divines,  been  adopted  by  the  Houses,  were 
brought  in  and  read.  All  of  them  indicate  that 
serious  business  was  meant,  and  freedom  of  dis- 
cussion was  to  be  protected  to  the  utmost.  They 
provide, yfr.f/ .'  that  two  assessors  shall  be  joined 
to  the  Prolocutor  to  supply  his  place  in  case  of 
absence  or  infirmity;  second:  that  scribes  shall 
be  appointed  to  set  down  all  proceedings,  and 
these  to  be  divines  who  are  not  of  the  Assemblv, 


Its  Proceedings  and  Debates.        139 

viz.,  Mr.  Henry  Roborough  and  Mr.  vVdonirani 
Byfield;  third:  that  every  member,  at  his  first 
entry  into  the  Assembly,  shall  make  serious  and 
solemn  protestation  not  to  maintain  anything  but 
what  he  believes  to  be  truth  in  sincerity,  when 
discovered  unto  him  ;  fourth :  that  no  resolution 
shall  be  given  upon  any  question  the  .same  day 
wherein  it  is  first  propounded ;  fifth :  that  what 
any  man  undertakes  to  prove  as  necessary,  he 
shall  make  good  out  of  the  Scriptures  ;  sixth :  that 
no  man  proceed  in  any  di.spute,  after  the  Proloc- 
utor has  enjoined  him  silence,  unless  the  Assem- 
bly desire  he  may  go  on ;  seventh :  that  no  man 
shall  be  denied  to  enter  his  dissent  from  the 
Assembly  and  his  reasons  for  it  on  any  point  after 
it  has  been  first  debated  in  the  Assembly,  and 
thence  (if  the  dissenting  party  desire  it)  the  same 
to  be  sent  to  the  Houses  of  Parliament  by  tJie 
Assembly,  not  by  any  particular  man  or  men  in 
a  private  way,  when  either  House  shall  require; 
eighth :  that  all  things  agreed  on,  and  prepared 
for  the  Parliament,  be  openly  read  and  allowed  in 
the  Assembly,  and  then  offered  as  the  judgment 
of  the  Assembly,  if  the  major  part  assent;  pro- 
vided that  the  opinions  of  any  persons  dissent- 
ing and  the  reasons  urged  for  their  doing  so,  be 
annexed  thereunto  if  the  dissenters  require  it, 
together  with  the  solutions  (i.  e.  answers,  as  we 
now  designate    them),  if  any  were  given  to  the 


1 40   opening  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  : 

Assembly,  of  these  reasons.^  Possibly  there  may 
have  been  some  talk  also  at  this  session  of  revising 
the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  At  least  under  date  of 
July  nth  the  London  correspondent  oi  Mercurius 
Aidicus  reports  this,  though  he  mixes  it  up  with 
the  proceedings  which  took  place  on  Saturday. 
**  It  was  this  day  certified  that  the  ministers  of 
their  Assembly  being  met  on  Thursday,  according 
to  adjournment,  fell  presently  upon  the  altering 
of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  so  solemnly  agreed 
upon  in  the  beginning  of  the  reformation  of  this 
Church.  .  .  .  Notice  of  this  being  brought  to  the 
Lower  House,  caused  it  to  be  diversely  spoken  of; 
some  wiser  than  the  rest  declared  that  it  was  not 
within  the  power  of  their  commission  to  alter 
either  the  doctrine  or  the  discipline  of  the  church 
which  had  been  formerly  established."  But  he 
errs  in  supposing  that  the  Assembly  anticipated 
the  action  of  the  Parliament.  The  Journals  of 
the  House  of  Commons  distinctly  show  (vol.  iii. 
p.  156)  that  directions  had  been  issued  by  the 
Houses  on  Wednesday  that  it  should  begin  con- 
sideration of  the  Articles. 

Lightfoot  has  no  entry  in  his  journal  in  regard 
to  the  work  of  Friday;  but  from  another  source 
we  learn  that  it  was  observed  by  the  Assembly  and 
the  Houses  as  a  fast — a  season  of  humiliation,  and 
prayer  for  Divine  guidance  and  blessing  on  the 

^  Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons,  vol.  iii.  p.  157. 


Its  Proceedings  and  Debates.        141 

work  they  were  about  to  begin.  As  on  the  open- 
ing day,  there  met  in  Westminster  Abbey  both 
Houses  and  the  Assembly,  and  no  doubt  a  large 
congregation.  The  preacher  in  the  forenoon  was 
Oliver  Bowles,  one  of  the  oldest  members  of  the 
Assembly,  and  the  author  of  a  work  Dc  Pastore 
Evangclico^  which  was  republished  in  Holland  even 
after  Baxter  had  put  forth  his  famous  treatise 
"  The  Reformed  Pastor,"  to  inflame  his  brethren 
in  the  ministry  with  something  of  his  own  con- 
suming zeal.  The  sermon  of  Bowles  was  pub- 
lished under  the  title  "  Zeal  for  God's  House 
quickened,"  and  as  a  manifesto  of  the  intentions 
and  desires  of  the  Houses  and  of  the  divines  in 
their  confidence,  even  its  preface  is  noteworthy. 
*'  Out  of  your  vigilant  care,"  he  says,  addressing 
the  members  of  the  Houses,  "you  have  found  out 
a  way  ....  to  convene  an  assembly  of  grave  and 
learned  divines  with  whom  you  might  advise  con- 
cerning the  settlement  of  doctrine,  worship,  and 
church-government.  You  saw  cause  which  might 
move  you  so  to  do  in  respect,  ist,  of  those  licen- 
tious spirits  who  took  occasion  as  to  vent  their 
own  fancies  so  to  attempt  anything  in  matter  of 
doctrine  and  worship ;  2d,  in  that  for  want  of  an 
established  church-government  we  were,  and  still 
are,  in  danger  to  fall  from  a  tyranny  to  an  anar- 
chy ;  3d,  in  that  evil-minded  men,  seeing  no  effec- 
tual means  provided  to  suppress  such  variety  of 


1 42    opening  of  the  Westmifistei^  Assembly  : 

sects  as  did  start  up,  were  ready  to  censure  you 
as  the  favorers  of  such  opinions."  Then,  after  re- 
ferring briefly  and  with  approbation  to  their  giv- 
ing way  for  the  admittance  of  divines  of  different 
judgments  to  be  chosen  as  members  of  Assembly, 
and  according  Hberty  to  them  to  express  their 
several  views,  he  proceeds  thus  to  give  his  esti- 
mate of  the  importance  of  the  work  assigned  to 
them :  "  Is  not  your  work  a  counterwork  to  that 
great  and  long-plotted  design  whereby  Popery 
should  have  been  readvanced,^  God's  saving  truth 
been  suppressed,  his  worship  substantially  cor- 
rupted or  utterly  destroyed  ?  Is  it  not  a  work 
of  the  largest  extent  as  that  which  concerns  all 
other  Reformed  churches,  whose  happiness  or 
misery  will  be  involved  in  ours  ?  Yea,  ages  to 
come  will  either  bless  or  curse  you  as  you  shall 
follow  or  neglect  the  opportunity."  His  ser- 
mon   pointed,  as    the   Puritan   leaders   had    done 

^  No  one  could  be  more  persistent  than  I^aud  in  disclaiming  all 
inclination  toward  reunion  with  Rome  till  it  was  other  than  it 
then  was.  "  But  facts  were  too  strong  for  him.  The  revival  of 
"  Catholic  "  principles  was  the  signal  for  fashionable  conversions. 
The  Jesuits  smiled  approval,  for  they  knew  that  their  day  was  come. 
The  queen's  chapel  and  the  chapels  of  foreign  ambassadors  were 
thronged  with  high-born  ladies,  sighing  for  readmission  into  the  true 
fold.  The  stern  and  sincere  Protestant,  to  whom  ritualism  was 
never  anything  but  Popery  in  disguise,  saw  the  liberties  which  the 
Smithfield  martyrs  had  won  being  silently  filched  from  him.  lie 
knew  that  there  was  another  struggle  before  him,  or  the  sticks  were 
again  growing  which  would  form  the  fagots  of  new  pyres." — 
Edinburgh  Revietv  for  October  1882. 


Its  Proceedings  and  Debates.        143 

in  1560  and  again  in  1603,  to  an  earnest  preach- 
ing ministry  as  the  great  want  of  the  times,  and 
enlarged,  as  became  the  author  of  the  Dc  Pastorc 
Evaugctico,  on  the  manner  in  which  such  a  min- 
istry should  strive  to  preach,  almost  as  was  done 
afterward  by  the  Assembly  itself  in  its  directory 
for  preaching,  "  zealously,  compassionately,  con- 
vincingly, feelingly,  frequently,  gravely."  (E.  63.) 
The  sermon,  all  in  all,  is  a  noble  one. 

Matthew  Newcomen,  who  preached  in  the  after- 
noon of  the  same  day,  adverted,  as  became  a 
Smectymnuan  divine,  to  the  preciousness  of  every 
grain  of  God's  truth,  every  "  selvedge  "  of  Christ's 
seamless  robe,  and  affirmed  "  he  must  have  a  heart 
more  ignorant  and  unbelieving  than  the  apostle's 
IduoTfj::  (i  Cor.  xiv.  24)  that  should  come  in  and 
be  an  ear-witness  of  your  proceedings,  and  not 
worship  God  and  report  that  God  is  in  you  of  a 
truth.  Verily  I  have  often  from  my  heart  wished 
that  your  greatest  adversaries  and  traducers  might 
be  witnesses  of  your  learned,  grave,  and  pious 
debates,  which  were  able  to  silence,  if  not  convert 
malignity  itself."  (E.  63.)  This  day  of  prayer  was 
but  the  first  of  many  days  similarly  observed  in 
these  earnest  anxious  years.  We  may  not  venture 
to  assert  that,  with  all  their  care,  no  human  in- 
firmity was  allowed  to  m.ingle  with  the  simplicity 
of  their  waiting  upon  God  to  receive  indications 
of  His  will.     For  in  what  crisis  of  the  Church's 


1 44   Opening  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  : 

fate  dare  we  maintain  that  infirmity  did  not  to 
some  extent  mingle  with  and  mar  many  a  holy 
sacrifice,  many  an  act  of  true  service  to  Christ? 
Yet  we  may  without  misgiving  indignantly  repel 
the  theory  which  would  ascribe  any  part  of  their 
conduct  to  conscious  hypocrisy  or  self-deception. 
They  were  true  men  of  God,  desiring  from  their 
very  hearts  to  do  His  work  in  their  generation, 
and  feeling  deeply  their  need  of  His  aid  and 
blessing,  that  they  might  do  it  well.  But  they 
were  men,  after  all,  of  like  passions  with  our- 
selves, liable  to  err  in  judgment  and  in  temper, 
compassed  about  with  infirmities  and  having  their 
mental  vision  obscured  by  not  a  few  prejudices. 
To  say  that  of  them  is  to  say  no  more  than  we 
should  have  to  say  of  the  best  of  their  opponents. 

The  same  day  Mr.  Rouse  and  Mr.  Salloway 
were  deputed  by  the  House  of  Commons  "  to  re- 
turn thanks  to  Dr.  Twisse,  Mr.  Bowles,  and  Mr. 
Newcomen,  for  the  great  pains  they  took  in  the 
several  sermons  they  preached  at  the  desire  of 
both  Houses  in  Westminster  Abbey,  before  both 
Houses  and  Assembly,  upon  the  day  of  the  first 
meeting  of  the  Assembly,  and  upon  the  fast-day 
for  the  Assembly,"  and  to  desire  them  to  print 
their  sermons. 

On  the  following  day  when  the  Assembly  met, 
the  protestation  or  vow,^  which  was  framed  accord- 

1  The  suggestion  of  this  seems  to  have  come  from  one  of  the 


Its  Proceedings  and  Debates.        145 

ing  to  the  third  of  the  re^^ulations  already  quoted, 
and  is  still  inserted  in  the  preface  to  most  edi- 
tions of  the  Confession  of  Faith/ — having  been 
approved  of  by  the  Houses  of  Parliament — was 
taken  by  every  member  present — peers  and  com- 
moners as  well  as  divines.  The  vow  and  the  rules 
of  procedure  already  given  were  subsequently  ap- 
pointed to  be  read  in  the  beginning  of  each  week  or 
month,  to  remind  the  members  of  the  very  solemn 
obligations  under  which  they  acted  in  the  great 
work  they  had  undertaken.  There  was  then,  also, 
put  into  the  hands  of  the  divines  what  is  termed 
the  new  Covenant  or  Oath,  being  the  second  of 
those  vows  by  which,  previous  to  their  alliance 
with  the  Scots,  the  members  of  the  English  Parlia- 
ment, in  presence  of  the  dangers  which  threatened 
them,  thoufrht  it  incumbent  to  bind  themselves  to 

ablest  and  most  active  members  of  the  Assembly.  In  a  sermon 
preached  by  Palmer  before  the  House  of  Commons  he  had  said, 
"  I  humbly  wish  a  profession  or  promise  or  vow  (call  it  what  you 
will)  to  be  made  by  all  us  ministers  in  the  presence  of  God  to  this 
effect :  That  we  shall  propound  nothing  nor  consent  nor  oppose,  but 
what  we  are  persuaded  is  most  agreeable  to  the  Word  of  God  ;  ami 
will  renounce  any  pre-conceived  opinion  if  we  shall  be  convinced 
that  the  Word  of  God  is  otherwise.  So  shall  we  all  seek  Christ 
and  not  ourselves  nor  sidings ;  and  God's  truth  and  not  victory  or 
glory  to  ourselves."     (E.  60,  No.  3). 

1  "  I  do  seriously  promise  and  vow  in  the  presence  of  Almighty 
God,  that  in  this  Assembly,  whereof  I  am  a  member,  I  will  main- 
tain nothing  in  point  of  doctrine  but  what  I  believe  to  be  most 
agreeable  to  the  Word  of  God,  nor  in  point  of  discij^line,  but  what 
may  make  most  for  God's  glory  and  the  peace  and  good  of  his 
church." — Journals  of  House  of  Commons,  vol.  iii.  [>.  157. 
10 


1 46    opening  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  : 

resist  Popery  and  all  innovations  in  religion.  This, 
however,  was  soon  to  be  superseded  by  a  newer 
and  more  memorable  covenant,  and  it  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  actually  taken  by  the  divines. 
At  the  same  meeting  Mr.  White  of  Dorchester 
and  Dr.  Burgess  of  Watford  were  nominated 
assessors  to  supply  the  place  of  the  Prolocutor  in 
case  of  infirmity  or  absence.  It  was  also  arranged 
with  consent  of  Parliament,  that  the  Assembly 
should  proceed  at  once  to  revise  the  first  ten  of 
the  Thirty-nine  articles  of  the  Church  of  England, 
so  as  to  clear  them  from  the  false  glosses  which 
of  late  had  been  put  on  them  by  Pelagianizing 
and  Romanizing  divines,  and  above  all  by  that 
bold  pervert^  to  Romanism,  who  in  1634  first 
propounded  the  theory  revived  in  our  own  day  in 
Tract  No.  90,  that  subscription  of  them  was  not 

1  Davenport  or  Francisciis  a  Sancfa  Clara  by  name.  The  title 
of  his  book  was  "  Deus,  natura,  gratia,  sive  Tractatus  de  prredesti- 
natione,  de  mentis  et  peccatorum  remissionc,  etc.,  ubi  ad  tnuinam 
fidei  Catholicje  examinatur  confessio  Anglicana  et  ad  singula 
puncta  quid  teneat,  qualiter  differat,  excutitur,  doctrina  etiam 
Doctoris  subtilis  .  .  .  olim  Oxonite  et  Cantabrigise  et  solenniter 
approbata  et  honorifice  prselecta  exponitur  et  propugnatur  :  Lugd. 
1634."  The  fact  that  two  edition  of  the  book  were  issued  in  two 
successive  years,  that  it  was  inscribed  to  the  king,  and  urged  him  to 
complete  the  work  his  favorite  divines  had  so  well  begun,  is  proof 
at  once  whom  the  Jesuits  deemed  their  true  allies,  and  how 
confident  they  were  that  these  allies  had  prepared  the  way  for 
them.  Earnest  Protestants  might  well  feel  that  in  such  circum- 
stances their  very  reverence  for  the  Articles  required  that  they 
should  authoritatively  vindicate  them  from  the  false  glosses  put  on 
them. 


Its  Proceedinos  and  Debates,        147 

largely  inconsistent  with  acceptance  of  the  decrees 
of  Trent. 

To  prepare  their  work,  and  perhaps  to  conform 
to  the  precedent  set  by  the  Synod  of  Dort,  the 
whole  Assembly  was  "  cast  into  three  equal  com- 
mittees," according  to  the  order  in  which  the 
names  of  the  divines  stood  in  the  Ordinance  of 
the  Houses.  All  these  three,  however,  were  open 
committees,  to  which  any  member  interested  in 
their  business  might  come  at  pleasure.  All  three 
were  to  meet  on  Monday  at  one  o'clock.  The 
first  was  to  meet  in  Henry  VI I. 's  Chapel,  taking 
in  hand  the  first,  second,  third,  and  fourth  Articles. 
The  second  was  to  meet  in  the  place  used  hereto- 
fore by  the  Lower  House  of  Convocation  (that  is, 
as  we  are  informed  by  Dean  Stanley,  St.  John's 
and  St.  Andrew's  Chapel  on  the  north  side  of  the 
Abbey — a  little  chapel  below  stairs).  It  was  to 
proceed  on  the  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh  Articles. 
The  third  was  to  meet  in  the  Jerusalem  Chamber, 
long  the  usual  meeting-place  of  the  Upper  House 
of  Convocation,  and  was  to  take  up  Articles  eighth, 
ninth,  and  tenth.  A  sub-committee  of  six  or  eight 
persons,  partly  divines,  and  partly  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  was  appointed  to  seek  for 
ancient  copies  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  that  the 
Assembly  and  its  Committees  might  found  their 
proceedings  on  the  most  authentic.  The  learned 
Selden,  who  was  probably  Convener,  made  report 


14B    opening  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  : 

on  15th  July  of  the  proceedings  of  this  sub-com- 
mittee, and  brought  in  many  copies.  No  doubt 
one  of  these  was  that  copy  of  the  Latin  Articles 
of  1563  still  preserved  in  the  Bodleian,  and  said  to 
have  been  found  by  him  in  Archbishop  Laud's 
library.  It  has  been  deemed  of  importance  in  our 
own  day,  from  its  bearing  on  the  disputes  which 
have  been  revived  as  to  the  authenticity  of  that 
clause  of  the  twentieth  Article,  to  which  I  re- 
ferred in  my  first  lecture  as  asserting  the  power 
of  the  Church  to  decree  rites  and  ceremonies, 
and  claiming  for  it  authority  in  controversies  of 
faith. 

The  Assembly,  at  the  close  of  this  long  session, 
adjourned  till  Wednesday  in  the  following  week, 
and  left  Monday  and  Tuesday  free  for  the  import- 
ant work  assigned  to  the  Committees.  Lightfoot 
tells  us  that  at  their  first  meeting  Dr.  Burgess  was 
chosen  chairman  of  the  first  Committee,  Dr.  Stan- 
ton of  the  second,  and  Mr.  Gibbon  of  the  third; 
but  neither  he  nor  any  other  extant  authority  has 
supplied  a  list  of  the  three  Committees  as  they 
stood  on  that  day.  Three  lists  are  found  in  the 
manuscript  minutes  preserved  in  Dr.  Williams'  li- 
brary, which  I  take  to  be  lists  of  these  committees 
as  they  stood  at  certain  dates.  The  first  of  them 
bears  the  date  of  2d  November  1643,  and  is  given 
by  Dr.  Briggs  in  his  recent  interesting  paper  on  the 
Westminster  Assembly  in  the  January  number  of 


Its  Proceedings  and  Debates.        149 


the  Prcsbytcriaji  Rcviciv  for  1 880.  The  second  bears 
the  date  of  15th  February  1643-4.  The  third,  of 
date  1 2th  April  1644,  is  inserted  at  page  Ixxxv  of 
my  Introduction  to  the  published  volume  of  the 
Minutes  of  the  Assembly,  and   is   here  subjoined.^ 


'  \^First  Committee. '\ 
Mr.  Palmer. 
Mr.  Bowles. 
Mr.  Wilkinson,  Sen""- 
Mr.  Valentine. 
Mr.  Raynor. 
Dr.  Hoyle. 
Mr.  Bridge. 
Mr.  Goodwin. 
Mr.  Ley. 
Mr.  Case. 
Dr.  Gouge. 
Mr.  White. 
Mr.  Marshall. 
Mr.  Sedgwick. 
Mr.  Clark. 
Mr.  Bathurst. 
Mr.  Nye. 
Dr.  Smith. 

Dr.  Burges  [Convener] 
Mr.  Green. 
Mr.  Gower. 
Mr.  Taylor. 
Mr.  Wilson. 
Mr.  Tuckney. 
Mr.  Coleman. 
Mr.  Herle. 
Mr.  Herrick. 
Mr.  Mew. 
Mr.  Wrathband. 
Mr.  Hickes. 


\_Second  Committee. '\ 
Mr.  Clayton. 
Mr.  Gipps. 
Mr.  Burroughs. 
Mr.  Calamy. 
Mr.  Walker. 
Mr.  Caryl. 
Mr.  Seaman. 
Mr.  Reynolds. 
Mr.  Hill. 
Mr.  Jackson. 
Mr.  Carter  of  L[ondon] 
Mr.  Thorowgood. 
Mr.  Arrowsmith. 
Mr.  Gibson. 
Mr.  Whitaker. 
Dr.  Stanton  [Conv""-]. 
Mr.  Lightfoot. 
Mr.  Corbet. 
,  Mr.  Langley. 
Mr.  Tisdale. 
Mr.  Young. 
Mr.  Philips. 
Mr.  Couant. 
Mr.  Chambers. 
Mr.  Hall. 
Mr.  Scudder. 
Mr.  Bayley. 
Mr.  Pickering. 
Mr.  Cawdry. 
Mr.  Strickland. 
Mr.  Bond. 
Mr.  Harris. 


[  Third  Committee. ^ 
Mr.  Salloway. 
Mr.  Simpson. 
Mr.  Burgess. 
Mr.  Vines. 
Mr.  Greenhill. 
Dr.  Temple. 
Mr.  Ashe. 
Mr.  Gataker. 
Mr.  Spurstow. 
Mr.  Cheynel. 
Mr.  De  la  March. 
Mr.  Newcomen. 
Mr.  Carter  of  D[ynton]. 
Mr.  Hodges. 
Mr.  Perne. 
Mr.  Prophet. 
Mr.  Sterry. 

Mr.  Guibon  [Conv'-]. 
Mr.  Michaelthwaite. 
Dr.  Wincop. 
Mr.  Price. 

Mr.  Wilkinson,  Jun""- 
Mr.  Woodcock. 
Mr.  De  la  Place. 
Mr.  Maynard. 
Mr.  Paynter. 
Mr.  Good. 
Mr.  Hardwick. 


1 50   opening  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  : 

By  the  date  at  which  it  was  drawn  up  some  of  the 
original  members  had  died,  Dr.  Featley  and  a  few 
others  had  withdrawn,  and  most  of  the  superadded 
divines  had  taken  their  seats  in  the  Assembly. 
Possibly  the  last  two  names  on  the  second  Com- 
mittee should  be  removed  to  the  third.  At  least 
such  a  change  is  needed  to  make  the  numbers 
in  each  equal. 

When  the  Assembly  met  on  Wednesday,  and 
the  report  from  the  first  Committee  was  given  in 
by  Dr.  Burgess,  great  debate  arose  because  they 
had  not  adduced  any  passages  of  Scripture  for  the 
clearing  and  vindicating  of  the  real  sense  of  those 
Articles  wherewith  they  were  intrusted,  and  the 
question  was  raised  whether,  in  proceeding  upon 
all  the  Articles,  Scripture  should  be  adduced  "  for 
the  clearing  of  them"  and  fixing  of  their  meaning. 
This  question  after  long  debate  was  determined 
affirmatively.  From  this  date  onward  to  the  1 2th 
of  October  the  Assembly  was  mainly  occupied  with 
the  revision  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  The  keen 
and  lengthened  debates  which  occurred  in  the  dis- 
cussions on  these  Articles  could  not  fail  to  prepare 
the  way  for  a  more  summary  mode  of  procedure 
in  connection  with  the  Confession  of  Faith.  The 
proceedings  then  were  more  summary,  or  at  least 
more  summarily  recorded,just  because  the  previous 
discussions  on  the  more  important  doctrines  of  the 
Protestant  system,  and  especially  on  that  of  Justifi- 


lis  Proceedings  and  Dehaies.        \  5 1 

cation  by  Faith,  had  been  thorough  and  exhaustive, 
and  pretty  fully  recorded.  Lightfoot  has  preserved 
no  detailed  record  of  these  discussions,  but  in  part 
at  least  they  are  fully  reported  in  the  first  volume 
of  the  MS.  Minutes  of  the  Assembly.  Dr.  Featley's 
two  speeches  in  the  debates  on  the  eighth  Article 
and  his  five  speeches  in  those  on  the  eleventh,  as 
well  as  his  speech  in  regard  to  the  Solemn  League 
and  Covenant,  were  published  shortly  after  his 
death.  They  are  learned,  acute,  and  forcible,  and 
as  they  give  more  satisfactory  insight  into  the 
matters  discussed  than  the  desultory  notes  taken 
by  the  scribes,  I  subjoin  a  few  extracts  from  them.^ 
In  regard  to  the  eighth  Article  on  the  three  creeds 
to  which  a  persistent  party  in  the  Assembly,  as 
afterward  in  the  House  of  Commons,  objected, 
it  appears  that  the  exceptions  taken  were  partly 
against  the  titles  of  the  creeds,  and  partly  against 
their  contents.  **  It  is  objected,"  the  Doctor  says, 
"  by  some  of  our  learned  brethren  that  the  Nicene 
creed  is  in  truth  the  Constantinopolitan,  that  the 
creed  which  goeth  under  the  name  of  Athanasius 
was  either  made  by  Anastasius  or  Eusebius  Vercel- 
lensis.  Certainly  Meletius,  Patriarch  of  Constan- 
tinople, resolves  it  negatively,  .  .  .  and  for  that 
which  is  called  the  Apostles'  Creed  the  father,  who 
so  christened  it,  is  unknown.     Hereunto  I  answer 

^  Speeches  in  the  Assembly,  generally  bound  with  his  Dippcn 
Dipt. 


1 5  2    opening  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  : 

that  though  the  entire  creed  which  is  read  in  our 
churches  under  the  name  of  the  Nicene  be  found 
totidcni  verbis  in  the  ConstantinopoHtan,  yet  it 
may  truly  be  called  the  Nicene,  because  the  great- 
est part  of  it  is  taken  out  of  that  of  Nice,  and  how- 
soever some  doubt  whether  Athanasius  were  the 
author  of  that  creed  which  bears  his  name,  yet  the 
greater  number  of  the  learned  of  later  ages  entitle 
him  to  it;  and  though  peradventure  he  framed  it 
not  himself,  yet  it  is  most  agreeable  to  his  doctrine, 
and  seemeth  to  be  drawn  out  of  his  works,  and  in 
that  regard  may  be  rightly  termed  his  creed.  For 
the  third  creed,  although  I  believe  not  that  the 
Apostles  either  jointly  or  severally  dictated  it,  yet 
I  subscribe  to  Calvin's  judgment,  who  saith  that 
it  was  a  summary  of  the  Christian  faith  extant 
in  the  Apostles'  days,  and  approved  of  by  them. 
Howsoever,  according  to  the  rule  of  Aristotle,  we 
must  use  the  language  of  the  vulgar  though  we 
vote  with  wise  men  and  think  as  they  do."  The 
things  in  the  contents  of  the  creeds  most  objected 
to  are,  he  then  proceeds  to  say,  (i)  the  too  peremp- 
tory way  in  which  the  Athanasian  creed  affirms 
the  damnation  of  those  who  do  not  believe  its 
doctrine.  To  this  he  answers  with  Vossius  that  it 
is  to  be  applied  to  such  only  as  have  capacity  to 
understand  it,  and  whose  consciences  are  convinced 
of  its  truth  ;  (2)  that  in  the  Nicene  creed  Christ  is 
spoken  of  as  "  God  of  God;"  to  which  he  replies 


Its  Proceedings  and  Debates.        153 

that  "  though  Christ  is  God  of  God  it  doth  not 
therefore  follow  that  the  deity  of  the  Son  is  from 
the  deity  of  the  Father,  as  it  does  not  follow  quia 
Dcus  passus  est,  ergo  Deltas  passa  est  or  quia 
Maria  est  mater  Dei,  ergo  est  Maria  mater  deita- 
tis  ;  "  (3)  that  it  is  said  in  the  Apostles'  Creed  Christ 
descended  into  hell ;  to  which  objection  he  deems 
it  sufficient  to  reply  that  all  Christians  acknowledge 
that  Christ  in  some  way  descended  into  hell  either 
locally,  as  many  of  the  ancient  fathers,  and  some 
of  the  moderns,  or  virtually,  as  Durandus,  or  meta- 
phorically as  Calvin,  or  metonymically  as  Tilenus, 
Perkins,  and  this  Assembly,  and  therefore  no  man 
need  to  make  scruple  of  subscribing  to  this  Article 
as  it  stands  in  the  Creed,  seeing  it  is  capable  of  so 
many  orthodoxal  explications." 

Notwithstanding  Dr.  Featley's  advice  to  them 
to  be  content  to  use  the  language  of  the  vulgar, 
though  thinking  as  wise  men  do,  the  Assembly 
deemed  it  better  to  alter  the  wording  of  Article 
VIII.  so  as  to  make  it  clear  that  they  did  not  re- 
gard these  ancient  symbols  as,  strictly  speaking, 
the  work  of  the  Apostles  or  of  the  Council  of  Nicea 
or  of  Athanasius,  but  only  as  being  commonly  so 
called,  or  going  under  their  names,  an  instance  of 
wondrous  caution,  which  should  be  admired  all  the 
more  by  those  who  do  not  credit  them  with  the 
highest  scholarship  or  critical  research,  as  some  in 
our  day  still  refuse  to  do. 


154    Opcjiiiig  of  tJic  Westminster  Assembly  : 

The  main  question  on  which  the  long  debates 
on  the  Article  of  Justification  turned  was  whether 
the  merit  of  the  obedience  of  Christ  as  well  as  the 
merit  of  his  sufferings  was  imputed  to  the  believer 
for  his  justification.  Several  of  the  most  distin- 
guished members  of  the  Assembly,  including 
Twisse  the  Prolocutor,  Mr.  Gataker,  and  Mr.  Vines, 
maintained,  as  had  been  formerly  done  by  Rollock 
in  Scotland,  Piscator  in  Germany,  and  Tilenus  in 
France,  that  it  was  the  sufferings  or  the  passive 
obedience  only  of  Christ  which  was  imputed  to 
the  believer.  The  Prolocutor  spoke  at  least  twice 
in  the  course  of  the  discussion  ;  Gataker  oftener 
and  at  greater  leng^th,  and  with  grreater  keenness. 
Dr.  Featley,  who  was  the  chief  disputant  on  the 
other  side,  and  who  was  a  thorough  Protestant  and 
Calvinist,  though  a  decided  royalist  and  Episco- 
palian, spoke  at  least  five  times,  maintaining,  as 
Ussher  had  formulated  it  in  his  Irish  Articles,  and 
the  great  majority  of  English  Puritans  had  accepted 
it,  that  Christ's  active  obedience  or  fulfilling  of  the 
law,  as  well  as  his  passive  obedience  or  suffering 
of  its  penalty,  was  imputed  to  the  believer,  and  was 
necessary  to  constitute  him  righteous  in  the  sight 
of  God  and  entitle  him  to  eternal  life.  I  can  only 
find  room  for  a  few  brief  extracts  from  Dr.  Featley's 
fifth  speech,  which  bears  the  title,  "  Concerning  the 
resolve  of  the  Assembly  that  the  whole  obedience 
of  Christ  is  imputed  to  every  believer."     He  first 


Its   Proceedings  and  Debates.        T55 

notices  and  states  not  unfairly,  the  three  objections 
taken  to  the  proposition  by  Gataker  that  it  was  re- 
dundant, yet  deficient,  and  novel ;  redundant  in  that 
the  word  zvhole  obedience  of  Christ  must  include 
his  obedience  to  the  ceremonial  law  as  well  as  to 
the  moral ;  deficient  in  that  the  word  obedience 
could  not  be  held  to  include  Christ's  original 
righteousness ;  novel  in  so  far  as  the  imputation 
of  Christ's  active  as  well  as  passive  obedience  was 
never  defined  for  dogma  before  the  French  Prot- 
estant Synods  of  Gap  and  Privas.'  To  the  objec- 
tion of  redundancy  Featley  replied  that  though  zve 
were  not  bound  by  the  ceremonial  law,  yet  the 
Jews  were,  and  that  this  was  part  of  the  meaning 
of  the  Apostle  when,  in  Galatians  iv.  4,  he  speaks 
of  Christ  as  being  made  under  the  law  to  redeem 
them  that  were  under  the  law.  To  the  charge 
of  deficiency  he  rejoins  that  though  Christ's  orig- 
inal righteousness  was  requisite  in  him  both  as 
high  priest  and  sacrifice,  yet  it  was  not  properly 
the  work  of  Christ  but  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  so 
not  to  be  imputed  to  us  as  any  act  of  our  Mediator. 
To  the  objection  of  novelty  he  replied  that  the 
doctrine  itself  was  much  more  ancient  than  the 
French  Synods  in  question,  adducing  testimonies 
in  its  favor  from  Chrysostom,  Augustine,  Bernard, 
Luther,  Calvin,  Peter  Martyr,  and  others.  He 
then   proceeds    as    follows  : — "  Here    methinks   I 

^  Quick's  Synodicum,  vol.  i.  pp.  227,  348. 


1 56   O paling  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  : 

hear  those  who  are  most  active  in  the  Assembly 
for  the  imputation  of  the  mere  passive  obedience 
of  Christ,  Hke  the  tribunes  among  the  Romans, 
ob)iunciare  et  mtcrcedcrc,  that  they  may  hinder  and 
stop  the  decree  of  the  Assembly,  alleging  that 
though  some  of  the  ancient  fathers,  and  not  a  few 
of  the  reformed  doctors,  cast  in  their  white  stone 
among  ours,  yet  that  we  want  the  suffrage  of 
Him  who  alone  hath  the  turning  voice  in  all 
debates  of  this  kind,  and  that  according  to  our 
protestation  made  at  our  first  meeting  we  ought  to 
resolve  upon  nothing  in  matter  of  faith,  but  what 
we  are  persuaded  hath  firm  and  sure  ground  in 
Scripture,  and  howsoever  some  texts  have  been 
alleged  for  the  imputation  of  both  active  and 
passive  obedience,  yet  that  at  our  last  sitting  they 
were  wrested  from  us,  and  all  inferences  from 
thence  cut  off;  all  the  redoubts  and  forts  built  upon 
that  holy  ground  were  sleighted.  It  will  import, 
therefore,  very  much  those  who  stand  for  the 
affirmative  to  recruit  the  forces  of  truth  and  repair 
the  breaches  in  our  forts  made  by  the  adversaries' 
batteries."  He  then  takes  up  in  detail  the  several 
texts  which  had  been  adduced,  and  replies  with 
considerable  pertinency  to  Gataker's  arguments 
respecting  each.  The  latter  had  said  that  by 
obedience  in  Rom.  v.  18-19,  the  apostle  meant 
the  special  obedience  which  Christ  gave  to  His 
Father's  commandment  to  lay  down  His  life  for 


Its  Proceedings  and  Debates.        157 

the  sheep,  just  as  in  PhiHppians  he  spake  of  Christ 
becoming  obedient  unto  death.  To  this  Dr. 
Featley  repHcs  that  the  word  in  the  former 
passage  was  not  oTtaxorj  but  dcxaUofia^  which  was 
never  taken  in  Scripture  for  suffering  or  mere 
passive  obedience ;  further,  that  no  man  is  said  to 
have  justification  of  Hfe  or  abundance  of  grace 
and  the  gift  of  righteousness  by  suffering  only  ; 
and  finally  that  the  obedience  here  mentioned, 
being  set  in  opposition  to  Adam's  disobedience, 
must  be  active  as  Adam's  was.  From  the  life  of 
Lightfoot  prefixed  to  the  Latin  edition  of  his  works 
we  learn  that  the  same  view  was  ably  maintained 
by  that  eminent  scholar,  and  extended  to  uzaxorj 
as  well  as  dcxauo/ia}  On  the  text  I  Cor.  i.  30, 
Christ  is  made  to  us  wisdom,  and  righteousness, 
and  sanctification,  etc.,  Gataker  had  argued  that 
Christ  is  made  to  us  righteousness  as  he  is  made 
wisdom,  but  he  is  not  made  to  us  wisdom  by  im- 
puting his  wisdom  to  us,  but  by  instructing  us  ; 
so  neither  is  he  said  to  be  made  righteousness  be- 
cause his  righteousness  is  imputed  to  us,  but  be- 
cause by  his  grace  he  makes  us  actually  righteous. 
To  this  Featley  replies  (i)  that  whatever  Christ  is 
made  to  us  he  is  made  perfectly,  but  he  is  not 
made  perfectly  wisdom  or  righteousness  save  by 
imputing  his  own  righteousness  and  wisdom  to  us 
which  are  most  perfect ;  (2)  Christ  is  made  right- 

1  Light  foot  a  Opera,  vol.  i.     Vita,  ^  3. 


158    opening-  of  the  Westminster  Assembly: 

eousness  to  us  in  the  same  sense  as  he  is  made 
redemption,  but  he  is  made  redemption  unto  us  by 
imputing  his  passive  obedience  ;  therefore  in  Hke 
manner  he  is  made  righteousness  to  us  by  imput- 
ine  his  active  obedience.     In  the  same  manner  he 
rephes  to  the  arguments  founded  on  2  Cor.  v.  21 
and  Col.  ii.    10,  and  then   concludes  as  follows: 
"  No  man  who  standeth  rectus  in  curia  as  Adam 
did   in   his   innocency  or  the   angels   before  they 
were  confirmed  in  grace,  is  bound  both  to  fulfill 
the  law,  and   to  satisfy  for  the  violation  thereof; 
but  to  the  one  or  to  the  other,  to  fulfill  only  the 
law  primarily,  and  to  satisfy  for  not  fulfilling  it  in 
case  he  should   transgress  ;  but  that   is  not  our 
present  case,  for  we  are  all  born  and  conceived  in 
sin,  and   by    nature   are   the    children    of  wrath, 
guilty  as  well  of  Adam's  actual  transgression  as 
our  own  corruption  of  nature  drawn  from  his  loins. 
Therefore,   first,  we  must  satisfy  for  our  sin  and 
then  by  our  obedience  lay  claim  to  life,  according 
as  it   is  offered  to  us  by  God  in   his  law."     "  We 
grant  freely  that  Christ's  death  is  sufficient  for  the 
satisfactory  part,  but,  unless  his  active  obedience 
be  imputed  to  us,  we  have  no  plea  or  title  at  all 
to  eternal   life.     I    may  illustrate  this  by  a  lively 
similitude,  such  as  that  to  which  the  apostle  else- 
where alludes.     In  the  Olympian  games  he  that 
overcame  received  a  crown  of  gold  or  silver,  or  a 
garland  of  flowers,  or  some  other  badge  of  honor ; 


Its  Proceedings  and  Debates.        159 

but  he  that  was  overcome,  besides  the  loss  of  the 
prize,  forfeited  something  to  the  keeper  of  the 
games.  Suppose  some  friend  of  his  should  pay 
his  forfeit,  would  that  entitle  him  to  his  garland  ? 
Certainly  no ;  unless  ...  in  another  race  he  out- 
strip his  adversary  he  must  go  away  crownless. 
This  is  our  case  by  Adam's  transgression  and  our 
own ;  we  have  incurred  a  forfeiture  or  penalty  ; 
this  is  satisfied  by  the  imputation  of  Christ's  pas- 
sive obedience;  but  unless  his  active  be  also  im- 
puted to  us  we  could  have  no  plea  or  claim  to 
our  crown  of  glory,  for  we  have  not  in  our  own 
persons  so  run  that  we  might  obtain." 

After  this  speech  the  divines  called  for  a  vote 
on  the  question,  and  though  some  of  eminent  parts 
in  the  Assembly  dissented,  yet  far  the  major  part 
voted  for  the  affirmative,  that  Christ's  wJiole  obedi- 
ence was  imputed  to  the  believer.  Before  the 
close  of  the  session,  however,  Dr.  Featley  seems 
himself  to  have  been  disposed  to  yield  somewhat 
to  the  great  divines  opposed  to  him.  Perhaps  he 
had  got  a  quiet  hint  from  Ussherhis  correspondent 
at  Oxford  to  do  so.  He  produced  a  copy  of  the 
letter  referred  to  by  the  Prolocutor  in  the  course 
of  the  discussion,  which  had  been  written  by  King 
James  to  the  Synod  of  the  French  Protestant 
Church  which  met  at  Privas  in  161 2.  In  this 
letter  the  king  counseled  them  to  let  this  question, 
and  those  depending  on  it,  "  be  altogether  buried 


1 60   opening  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  : 

and  left  in  the  grave,  with  the  napkin  and  linen 
clothes  wherein  the  body  of  Christ  was  wrapped 
.  .  .  lest  peradventure  by  too  much  wrangling  they 
seem  to  cut  in  two  the  living  child,  which  the 
tender-hearted  mother  would  not  endure,  or  divide 
the  seamless  coat  of  Christ  which  the  cruel  soldier 
would  not  suffer."  The  reason  he  assigned  for  this 
counsel  was  that  the  question  was  altogether  new, 
and  not  necessary  to  be  determined,  unheard  of  in 
former  ages,  not  decided  by  any  council,  nor 
handled  in  the  fathers,  nor  disputed  by  the  school- 
men. Probably  it  was  on  this  account  that  when 
the  Assembly  came  to  treat  of  the  subject  of 
Justification  in  their  Confession  of  Faith  they  left 
out  the  word  zvholc  to  which  Gataker  and  his 
friends  had  most  persistently  objected,  so  that  the 
clause,  which  in  their  revised  version  of  Article 
XI.  had  stood  in  the  form  "  his  zvhole  obedience 
and  satisfaction  being  by  God  imputed  to  us,"  was 
in  the  confession  changed  into  ''  imputing  the 
obedience  and  satisfaction  of  Christ,"  which  though 
it  hardly  seems  to  us  to  include,  still  less  to  favor 
their  view,  they  were  content  to  accept  as  less 
rigid  than  the  other.  At  least  on  its  being  con- 
ceded Gataker  and  his  friends  agreed  to  drop 
further  controversy  on  the  question,  as  has  been 
distinctly  recorded  by  Simeon  Ashe  in  his  funeral 
sermon  for  his  old  friend  Gataker. 

Before  the   12th  of  October,  the  Assembly  had 


Its  Proceedinos  and  Debates,        i6 


"<b 


revised  fifteen  of  the  Articles,  and  were  proceeding 
with  the  sixteenth/  when,  by  order  of  the  Houses, 
they  laid  aside  this  work  and  proceeded  to 
take  in  hand  the  government  and  liturgy  of  the 
Church.  What  they  had  accomplished  previously 
they  regarded  as  superseded  by  a  later  order  to 
draw  up  a  Confession  of  Faith.  It  was  only  after 
repeated  peremptory  messages  from  the  House  of 
Commons  that  they  consented  to  send  it  up  to 
them,  and  they  accompanied  it  by  an  explanatory 
preface  in  which  they  stated  that  they  regarded 
the  work  as  in  several  ways  imperfect,  and  as  hav- 
ing relation  only  to  the  Church  of  England,  and 
therefore  as  superseded  by  the  more  recent  order 
sent  to  them  to  prepare  a  Confession  of  Faith  for 
the  churches  of  the  three  kingdoms.  The  Articles, 
as  far  as  revised  by  the  Assembly,  have  been  often 
reprinted,  not,  however,  in  the  exact  form  in  which 
they  were  sent  up  by  the  Assembly  to  the  Houses, 
but  in  the  form  in  which  they  were  passed  by  them, 
and  were  included  among  the  documents  submitted 
for  the  acceptance  of  the  king  in  the  negotiations 
of  1648.  The  full  form,  together  with  the  preface 
of  the  Assembly,  is  to  be  found  in  a  rare  volume 
of  tracts  contained  in  the  library  of  the  British 
Museum  (King's  Pamphlets,  E.  516).  The  only 
material  difference  between  the  two  forms  is  that 

1  They  had  resolved  to  change  "  may  depart  from  grace  given  " 
into  'Vmay  fail  of  the  grace  of  Goil  attained."  : 

11 


1 62    opening  of  the  Westniinstei^  Assembly : 

while  Article  VI 1 1,  is  omitted  from  the  former,  it 
is  retained  in  the  latter,  and  in  a  revised  version 
slightly  different  from  that  given  in  Lightfoot's 
Journal.  **  The  creeds  that  go  under  the  name 
of  the  Nicene  Creed,  Athanasius'  Creed,  and  that 
which  is  commonly  called  the  Apostles'  Creed, 
are  thoroughly  to  be  received  and  believed,  for 
that  they  may  be  proved  by  most  certain  warrant 
of  Holy  Scripture."^ 

While  the  revision  of  the  Articles  was  being 
carried  forward  at  Westminster,  the  cause  of  the 
Parliament  had  been  going  backward  in  the  coun- 
try. One  and  another  defeat  had  been  sustained 
by  their  forces,  and  their  supporters  in  various 
parts  were  becoming  so  disheartened,  that  at  the 
request  of  the  House  of  Commons  divers  of  the 
members  of  the  Assembly  were  sent  away  from 
their  duties  there,  and  instructed  to  go  to  various 
parts  of  the  kingdom,  and  stir  up  the  people  to 
greater  zeal  in  their  cause.  It  might  have  been 
well  for  the  Assembly  itself  had  such  a  policy 
been  followed  more  frequently  when  it  became 
apparent  that  the  work  for  which  it  was  called  was 
not  to  be  rapidly  completed.  The  immuring  of  so 
many  of  the  ablest  ministers  for  so  long  a  time  in 
London,  if  it  strengthened  their  hold  on  that  great 
city,  tended  to  weaken  their  hold  on  their  parish- 

»  The  Preface  as  well  as  the  ultimate  revision  of  this  Article  are 
given  in  the  appendix  to  the  printed  Mimitcs  of  the  Assembly. 


Its  Proceedings  and  Debates.        163 

ioners  in  the  country  and  in  the  provincial  towns, 
and  so  to  separate  the  metropolis  and  the  provinces, 
as  to  make  the  revolution  ultimately  effected  by 
the  leaders  of  the  army  a  far  easier  matter,  than  it 
vi^ould  have  been  had  the  elite  of  their  ministers 
been  able  to  be  more  in  their  parishes,  and  to  guide 
opinion  at  so  many  important  centers  in  harmony 
with  what  it  was  in  London.  It  was  at  the  same 
crisis  in  their  fortunes  that  the  Parliament  finally 
made  up  their  minds  to  outbid  the  king  for  the 
Scotch  alliance,  and  despatched  conmiissioners  to 
Scotland  to  arrange  terms  with  the  Convention  of 
Estates  and  General  Assembly  there,  and  in  the 
name  of  the  Houses  and  the  Assembly  more 
formally  to  invite  the  assistance  of  Scottish  com- 
missioners in  the  deliberations  of  the  Assembly. 
All  the  Scottish  leaders  looked  favorably  on  the 
cause  which  the  English  parliament  was  defend- 
ing, but  all  were  not  at  first  agreed  that  they 
ought  to  take  a  side  in  the  contest  between  it  and 
the  king.  Henderson  and  several  other  trusted 
counselors  had  previously  urged  that  the  true  posi- 
tion for  them  to  assume,  in  the  first  instance,  was 
that  of  mediators  between  the  parties.  But  the 
coldness  of  their  reception  at  Oxford  had  discour- 
aged even  these,  while  the  concessions  of  the 
Parliament  on  the  subject  of  episcopacy  "  flattered 
the  ambition  of  the  nation,"  and  in  the  end  the 
fervid  eloquence  of  Johnstone  of  Warriston,  advo- 


1 64   opening  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  : 

eating  active  participation  in  the  contest,  carried 
all  before  it.^  It  was  unanimously  agreed,  that 
common  cause  should  be  made  with  their  English 
brethren,  and  that  every  possible  aid  should  be 
given  them  in  the  war,  into  which  they  had  been 
driven  in  defense  of  their  religion  and  liberties. 
Yet  all  were  determined  not  to  draw  their  swords 
about  mere  civil  grievances,  however  insupport- 
able these  were  deemed  to  be,  but  to  place  the 
cause  of  the  true  Reformed  religion,  and  the  gov- 
ernment of  Christ's  Church  according  to  His  Word 
in  the  forefront,  if  not  to  bring  the  Ark  of  God 
itself  into  the  battle.  They  would  not  have  the 
civil  league  which  the  English  commissioners 
offered  them,  but  pressed  for  a  solemn  religious 
bond  like  that  into  which  in  times  of  trial  they 
and  their  fathers  had  entered,  and  which  in  their 
recent  Vow  or  Covenant  the  English  Houses  had 
actually  indorsed.  The  English  commissioners 
were  obliged  at  last  so  far  to  yield  to  the  wishes 
of  the  Scotch  as  to  make  the  proposed  treaty  a 
solemn  League  and  Covenant  "  for  the  defense 
and  preservation  of  the  Reformed  religion  in  the 
Church  of  Scotland  in  doctrine,  worship,  disci- 
pline, and  government,  and  for  the  reformation  of 
religion  in  the  kingdoms  of  England  and  Ireland, 
according  to  the  Word  of  God  and  practice  of  the 
best  Reformed   Churches;    and  for  bringing  the 

^  Baillie's  Letters,  vol.  ii.  p.  90. 


Its  Proceedings  and  Debates.        165 

Church  of  God  in  the  three  kingdoms  to  the 
nearest  conjunction  and  uniformity  in  rehgion, 
Confession  of  Faith,  form  of  church-government, 
directories  for  worship  and  for  catechising,"  and 
then,  only  subordinately  or  conjunctly,  "  for  the 
defense  and  preservation  of  the  rights  and  privi- 
leges of  the  Parliament,  the  liberties  of  the  King- 
doms, and  of  the  King's  Majesty's  person  and 
authority  in  the  preservation  and  defense  of  the 
true  religion  and  liberties  of  the  Kingdoms." 

This  Covenant,  drafted  by  Henderson  and  ac- 
cepted by  the  English  commissioners,  was  forth- 
with transmitted  to  England,  where  after  some  very 
slight  changes  it  was  approved  by  the  Assembly 
and  accepted  by  the  Houses,  and  finally  was 
directed  to  be  subscribed  throughout  the  king- 
dom, as  it  also  was  in  Scotland.  It  was  sub- 
scribed there  with  singular  unanimity  and  enthusi- 
asm, and  if  with  less  general  spontaneity  in  Eng- 
land, yet  certainly  more  extensively  than  is  some- 
times represented.  Neale,  who  is  by  no  means 
a  blind  admirer  of  the  Scots,  informs  us  that  "  most 
of  the  religious  part  of  the  nation,  who  appre- 
hended the  Protestant  religion  to  be  in  danger, 
and  were  desirous  of  reducing  the  hierarchy,  were 
zealous  for  the  Covenant ;  "  and  others  who  were 
on  the  side  of  the  Parliament  took  it  in  obedience 
to  their  authority,  being  sensible  that  on  no  other 
conditions  could  the  assistance  of  the  Scots  be 


1 66   Opening  of  the  Westminstei^  Assembly : 

secured,  and  that  a  number  of  the  episcopal  divines 
who  made  the  greatest  figure  in  the  Church  after 
the  Restoration  did  not  refuse  it,  as  Cudworth, 
Wallis,  Reynolds,  Lightfoot,  and  many  others. 
Lightfoot  was  so  keen  for  it  that  he  does  not 
hesitate  to  speak  of  Dr.  Burgess,  who  opposed  it 
and  petitioned  the  House  of  Commons  to  be  heard 
ao-ainst  it,  "  as  a  wretch  to  be  branded  to  all  pos- 
terity,  seeking  for  some  devilish  ends,  either  of 
his  own  or  others,  or  both,  to  hinder  so  great  a 
good  of  the  two  nations,"  "  to  put  in  a  bar  against 
a  matter  of  so  infinite  weight,  and  asperse  such  an 
Assembly  with  so  much  mire  and  dirt."^  Dr. 
Burgess,  however,  was  not  the  only  objector  in 
the  Assembly  when  the  Houses  referred  the  Cove- 
nant to  them  for  their  judgment  and  counsel,  as 
to  whether  it  might  be  lawfully  sworn.  Dr.  Price 
seems  to  have  joined  him  in  his  opposition  and 
petition,  though  he  gave  in  sooner,  and  was  let  off 
more  easily.  In  addition  to  them  Dr.  Featley  and 
one  or  two  royalists,  who  still  remained  in  attend- 
ance, opposed  it  out-and-out,  and  Mr.  Lance,  if  he 
did  not  join  them,  slunk  away  from  the  Assembly 

1  Lighifoot's  Jounial,  pp.  12,  13,  14.  Dr.  M'Crie  seems  to  have 
doubted  whether  Lightfoot  had  not  exaggerated  both  as  to  Dr. 
Burgess's  offense  and  punishment.  But  tlie  Journals  of  the  House 
of  Commons  (vol.  iii.  pp.  225,  242)  confirm  his  account,  and  show 
that  "the  turbulent  doctor "  was  suspended  from  the  Assembly, 
and  had  to  make  a  humble  apology  to  the  House  ere  he  was  re- 
stored. Baillie  had  not  yet  come  up,  and  so  has  not  reported  the 
matter  with  his  usual  accuracy. 


Its  Proceedings  and  Debates.        167 

about  the  time  they  had  to  leave  it,  and  had  great 
difficulty  some  years  after  in  securing  its  appro- 
bation to  his  appointment  to  a  London  charge. 
Twisse,  Gouge,  and  Gataker  had  joined  in  object- 
ing to  the  2d  Article  as  originally  drafted  for  the 
extirpation  of  prelacy  without  any  limitation, — 
affirming,  that  while  opposed  to  such  episcopacy 
as  had  hitherto  been  in  the  Church  of  England, 
they  were  not  opposed  to,  and  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  swear  to  endeavor  the  extirpation  of,  all 
prelacy  or  stated  presidency  over  the  ministers  of 
the  Church.  To  satisfy  their  scruples  it  was 
agreed  to  insert  after  the  word  "  prelacy  "  the  ex- 
planatory clause  already  inserted  in  the  Ordinance 
calling  the  Westminster  Assembly  (that  is,  Church- 
government  by  Archbishops,  Bishops,  their  Chan- 
cellors and  Commissaries,  Deans,  Deans  and  Chap- 
ters, Archdeacons,  and  all  other  ecclesiastical 
officers  depending  on  that  hierarchy).^    There  can 

1  The  Assembly  reported  to  the  House  of  Commons  that  they 
had  received  the  Covenant  with  great  joy  and  contentment,  and  had 
fully  debated  and  considered  of  it,  and  *'  that  they  do  approve  of 
the  said  Covenant,  and  judge  it  to  be  lawful  in  point  of  conscience 
to  be  taken,  and  that  they  do  humbly  advise  that  these  explanations 
following  should  be  subjoined  to  the  Covenant,  viz.,  I.  By  the 
clause  in  the  first  article  of  the  Covenant,  '  according  to  the  ^^'ord 
of  God,'  we  understand  '  so  far  as  we  do  or  shall  in  our  consciences 
conceive  the  same  to  be  according  to  the  Word  of  God  ; '  2.  By 
'  Prelacy '  in  the  second  article  of  the  Covenant  we  understand 
'  the  church-government  by  Archbishops,  Bishops,  their  Chancel- 
lors, Commissaries,  Deans  and  Chapters,  Archdeacons,  and  other 
ecclesiastical  officers  depending  upon  the  hierarchy.'  "  The  House 


1 68    Opening  of  the  Westnwister  Assembly  : 

be  no  doubt  that  it  was  with  this  distinct  Hmitation 
that  the  Covenant  was  taken  by  many,  both  laymen 
and  divines,  in  England,  and  perhaps  as  little  doubt 
that  it  was  understood  by  most  in  Scotland  in  a 
more  absolute  sense;  and  if  there  is  no  great  foun- 
dation for  the  remark  of  Neale,  that  "  the  wise  men 
on  both  sides  endeavored  to  outwit  each  other  in 
wording  the  Articles,"  there  is  foundation  for  the 
remark  that  with  much  in  it  that  was  noble  and 
good  and  thoroughly  justifiable  at  such  a  crisis  in 
the  history  of  the  three  kingdoms,  it  was  not  free 
from  the  seeds  of  future  misunderstanding  and  dis- 
sension. Dr.  Stoughton  has  spoken  far  more  to 
the  point,  and  according  to  actual  facts,  than  Neale 
when  he  says,  "  The  English  Commissioners,  by 
accepting  the  Covenant,  pledged  themselves  to  the 
cause  of  which  the  Scotch  Presbyterians  regarded 
it  as  the  symbol,  and  looking  to  the  ecclesiastical 
opinions  of  the  English  Commissioners  Vane  and 
Nye,  we  cannot  defend  their  conduct  on  this  oc- 
casion against  the  charge  of  inconsistency."  Nor 
was  this  the  full  extent  of  Mr.  Nye's  fault.  He 
must  not  only  bear  the  blame  of  having  committed 
himself  by  tacit  acquiescence,  but  also  by  explicit 

approved  of  both  explanations,  and  recommended  the  insertion  of 
the  clause  relating  to  Ireland  in  the  preamble.  They  hesitated 
most  over  the  fifth  article,  which  pledged  them  in  their  station  to 
endeavor  that  the  kingdoms  should  remain  conjoined  in  firm  peace 
and  union  to  all  posterity,  and  that  justice  may  be  done  on  the 
willful  opposers  thereof- 


Its  Pi^occcdings  and  Debates.        169 

words.  In  his  speech  at  the  taking  of  the  Cove- 
nant by  the  House  of  Commons  and  the  Assembly 
of  Divines  in  St.  Margaret's  Church,  Westminster, 
to  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  in  my  next 
lecture,  he  gave  utterance  to  words  which  could 
not  but  lead  the  Scotch  to  believe  that  he  thought 
favorably  even  of  their  ecclesiastical  order:  "If 
England,"  he  says,^  *'  hath  attained  to  any  greater 
perfection  in  so  handling  the  word  of  righteousness 
...  as  to  make  men  more  godly,  ...  if  in  the 
churches  of  Scotland  any  more  ligJit  and  beauty  in 
matters  of  order  and  discipline  be  in  their  assem- 
blies, or  more  orderly,  ...  we  shall  humbly  bow 
and  kiss  their  lips  that  can  speak  right  words  to 
us  in  these  matters."  ....  These  kindly  sentiments 
seem  still  to  have  animated  him  when  he  penned 
or  put  his  name  to  the  Apologetical  Narration  of 
the  five  dissenting  members  of  the  Assembly. 
And  so  the  Scottish  Commissioners  had  some 
right  to  feel  both  surprised  and  indignant  when 
on  the  20th  February,  1 644, — there  being  then 
very  fair  appearances  of  agreement  in  the  matters 
disputed  between  the  two  parties, — after  long  and 
keen  debates,  Mr.  Nye  interfered  to  '*  spoil  all 
their  play,"  ^  and  offered  to  prove  their  favorite 
church-government    "  inconsistent    with    a    civil 

^  Speeches  delivered  before  the  sul)scribing  of  the  Covenant,  the 
25th  of  September,  at  St.  Margaret's,  Westminster. 
^  jBaillie's  Letters  and  Journals,  vol.  ii.  p.  145. 


1 70   opening  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  : 

state ;"  and  again  on  the  following  day  when, 
seeing  the  Assembly  full  of  the  prime  nobles  and 
chief  members  of  both  Houses,  he  did  fall  on 
that  argument  again  and  offered  to  demonstrate, 
that  their  way  of  drawing  a  whole  kingdom  under 
one  national  Assembly  was  formidable,  yea,  thrice 
over  pernicious  to  civil  states  and  kingdoms." 
It  was  hardly  to  be  wondered  at  that  he  should 
have  been  cried  down  and  voted  to  have  spoken 
against  the  order ;  or  that  the  pcrfervidum  inge- 
ninDi  Scotonnn  should  have  been  roused,  and  even 
the  calm  and  judicious  Henderson  should  for  the 
moment  have  so  far  given  way  to  his  exaspera- 
tion, as  to  compare  him  with  Sanballat,  Tobias, 
and  Symmachus,  who  sought  to  stir  up  their 
heathen  rulers  against  the  Jews,  or  to  Pagan 
writers  who  stirred  up  the  Roman  Emperors 
against  the  Christians. 

The  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  was  then, 
and  has  often  since  been  fiercely  and  unjustly  de- 
nounced, and  has  at  times  been  advocated  with 
only  less  fierceness  and  uncharitableness.  But 
even  Presbyterians,  who  may  doubt  of  its  de- 
scending obligation,  or  hesitate  with  Dr.  Hether- 
ington  to  characterize  it  as  "  the  wisest,  sublimest, 
most  sacred  document  ever  penned  by  uninspired 
men,"  will  cheerfully  grant  with  Dr.  M'Crie,  that 
it  was  "  an  unprecedented  deed  warranted  by  the 
unprecedented   dangers,  to  which   the    cause   of 


Its  Proceedings  and  Debates.        171 

Christ  in  Britain  was  then  exposed — an  act  of 
heroism  which,  if  Hke  an  act  of  martyrdom  it 
cannot  properly  be  repeated,  may  yet  be  grate- 
fully commemorated.  With  the  exception  of  that 
unparalleled  scene  in  the  Greyfriars'  Churchyard 
in  1638,  of  which  it  was  the  consequence  and 
completion,  the  signing  of  the  Solemn  League 
and  Covenant  was  perhaps  **  the  most  remarkable 
event  in  Scotland's  remarkable  history."  "  There 
are  moments,"  as  Mr.  Rawson  Gardiner  has  it, 
"  when  the  stern  Scottish  nature  breaks  out  into 
enthusiasm  less  passionate  but  more  enduring 
than  the  frenzy  of  a  southern  race."  This  was 
one  of  these  supreme  moments.  Bidding  away 
the  suggestions  of  worldly  prudence,  they  re- 
solved, as  with  one  heart  and  soul,  for  the  sake 
of  that  faith  which  was  dearer  to  them  than  life, 
to  put  in  jeopardy  all  they  had  gained,  and  make 
common  cause  with  their  southern  brethren  in 
the  time  of  their  sorest  need.  If  ever  nation 
swore  to  its  own  hurt,  and  changed  not,  made 
sacrifices  ungrudgingly,  bore  obloquy  and  mis- 
representation uncomplainingly,  and  had  wrongs 
heaped  on  it  most  cruelly  by  those  for  whom  its 
self-sacrifice  alone  opened  a  career,  it  was  the 
Scottish  nation  at  that  eventful  period  of  its  his- 
tory. It  felt  that  the  faith,  which  was  its  light 
and  life,  was  really  being  imperilled,  and  it  was 
determined,  as  in  the  days  of  Knox,  to  dare  all 


172    Openhig  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  : 

for  its  safety  and  triumph,  in  England  as  well  as 
in  Scotland. 

The  Covenant  in  the  eyes  of  all  true  Scotsmen 
will  ever  stand  identified  with  the  cause  of  Prot- 
estantism, the  cause  of  civil  and  religious  liberty, 
in  a  great  crisis  of  British  history ;  it  will  be  rec- 
ognized as  a  testimony  against  Popery,  sacerdotal- 
ism, and  all  profaneness,  which  at  no  small  cost 
our  fathers  kept  up  when  it  was  abandoned  else- 
where, and  which  we  ought  not  to  let  down 
though  we  may  have  to  bear  it  in  other  forms,  or 
to  carry  it  out  in  other  ways.  In  the  eyes  of 
many  patriotic  Englishmen  at  that  crisis  of  their 
struggle  for  their  religion  and  liberties,  it  appeared 
hardly  less  glorious.  '*  This  covenant  in  the  midst 
of  our  troubles  ....  did  mightily  revive  and  cheer 
our  drooping  spirits,  and  it  was  as  life  from  the 
dead."  "  We  shall  never  forget,"  say  the  Lan- 
cashire ministers,  "  how  solemnly  it  was  sworn, 
many  rejoicing  at  the  oath,  and  sundry  weeping 
for  joy.  We  thought  within  ourselves  that  surely 
now  the  crown  is  set  on  England's  head ;  we 
judged  the  day  of  entering  into  this  Covenant  to 
be  England's  coronation-day,  as  it  was  the  day 
of  the  gladness  of  our  hearts."  "  The  day  when 
this  Covenant  was  subscribed,"  says  the  Erastian 
Coleman,  "  was  a  day  of  contentment  and  joy. 
The  honorable  gentry  accounted  it  their  freedom 
to  be  bound  to  God,  the  men  of  war  accounted 


•  Its  Proceedi7igs  and  Debates.        173 

it  their  honor  to  be  pressed  for  this  service,  our 
brethren  of  Scotland  esteemed  it  a  happiness  and 
a  further  act  of  pacification.  Our  reverend  divines 
deserve  not  to  be  last  either  in  praise  or  perform- 
ance." Nor  were  thoughts  of  its  influence  on 
posterity  absent  from  the  minds  of  pious  Inde- 
pendents. "  Heartily  beseeching  God,"  says  Caryl, 
"  our  God,  the  great  and  mighty  and  terrible  God, 
who  keepeth  covenant  for  ever,  to  strengthen  us 
all  in  performing  the  duties  which  we  have  prom- 
ised in  this  Covenant that  the  children  which 

are  yet  unborn  may  bless  us  and  bless  God  for  us." 


LECTURE  VI. 

ARRIVAL  OF  THE  SCOTTISH  COMMISSIONERS,  EXTENSION 
OF  THE  assembly's  COMMISSION  CONSEQUENT  ON 
THE  ADOPTION  OF  THE  SOLEMN  LEAGUE  AND  COVE- 
NANT, DEBATES  ON  THE  OFFICE-BEARERS  AND 
COURTS    OF    THE    CHURCH. 

In  my  last  Lecture  I  gave  you  an  account  of 
the  opening  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  and  of 
the  more  important  doctrinal  debates  which  oc- 
curred during  its  early  sessions,  while  it  was 
occupied  in  revising  the  Articles  of  the  English 
Church,  and  adjusting  the  Solemn  League  and 
Covenant.  To-day  I  propose  to  give  a  brief 
account  of  its  debates  and  proceedings  while 
occupied  in  drawing  up  its  Propositions  concern- 
ing church-government,  or,  as  it  is  now  usually 
termed,  its  Form  of  Church-government,  as  well 
as  its  Directories  for  public  worship  and  for 
church-government  and  discipline.  Before  doing 
this,  however,  I  am  to  advert  to  the  arrival  and 
reception  of  the  Scottish  Commissioners,  and  I 
deem  it  best,  though  deviating  somewhat  from 
strict  chronological    order,  to    introduce  this  by 

174 


Taking  of  Solemn  Leagtie  and  Coveiiant.  i  75 

quoting  to  you  that  graphic  account  of  the  Assem- 
bly which  was  furnished  by  Robert  BailHe,  one 
of  these  commissioners,  shortly  after  the  date  at 
which  we  have  arrived,  and  which,  from  its  unique 
interest,  has  been  quoted  at  length  by  almost  all 
who  profess  to  treat  of  the  Assembly.  After 
narrating  briefly  to  that  correspondent  to  whom 
he  was  to  intrust  so  many  of  the  secret  actions 
and  motives  of  himself  and  his  brethren,  his 
admission  to  the  Assembly,  and  the  welcome  he 
received,  Baillie  (vol.  ii.  pp.  107-109)  goes  on  as 
follows : 

"  Here  no  mortal  man  may  enter  to  see  or  hear,  let  be  to 
sitt,  without  ane  order  in  wryte  from  both  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment. .  .  .  Thelikeof  that  Assembhe  I  did  never  see,  and, 
as  we  hear  say,  the  like  was  never  in  England,  nor  any 
where  is  shortlie  lyke  to  be.  They  did  sit  in  Henry  the  7th's 
Chappell,  in  the  place  of  the  Convocation  ;  but  since  the 
weather  grew  cold,  they  did  go  to  Jerusalem  chamber,'  a 
fair  roome  in  the  Abbey  of  Westminster,  about  the  bounds 
of  the  CoUedge  fore-hall,  but  wyder.^  At  the  one  end  near- 

*  "The  fairest  room  in  the  Dean's  lodgings"  and  "for  histor- 
ical associations  and  artistic  accessories  second  in  interest "  only 
to  the  Abbey  itself.  It  got  its  name  either  from  the  representations 
of  gospel  scenes  on  the  old  tapestry,  wainscot,  or  stained  glass,  or 
from  its  proximity  to  the  sanctuary,  the  place  of  peace.  See  Gilbert 
Scott's  Gleanings  from  and  Stanley's  Memorials  of  Westminster 
Abbey. 

2  This  has  generally  been  supposed  to  be  the  hall  fronting  the 
High  Street,  which  continued  till  recenUy  the  Hall  of  Glasgow 
College.  But  the  proportions  of  the  Jerusalem  Chamber  are  alto- 
gether different  from  those  of  that  hall.  It  is  not  wider  but 
narrower  than  it,  and  considerably  higher  in  proportion  to  the 
length.  The  only  explanation  I  can  suggest  is  that  which  I  gave 
at  the  meeting  with  Dean  Stanley  in  1875,  that  Baillie  spoke  of  a 


176  Arrival  of  Scottish   Com  mis  si  oner s  : 

est  the  doore,  and  both  sydes  are  stages  of  seats  as  in  the 
new  Assembhe-House  at  Edinburgh,  but  not  so  high ;  for 
there  will  be  roome  but  for  five  or  six  score.  At  the  upmost 
end  there  is  a  chair  set  on  ane  frame,  a  foot  from  the  floor, 
for  the  Mr.  Proloqutor  Dr.  Twisse.  Before  it  on  the  floor 
stand  two  chairs  for  the  two  Mr.  Assessors,  Dr.  Burgess  and 
Mr.  Whyte.  Before  these  two  chairs,  through  the  length  of 
the  roome,  stands  a  table,  at  which  sitt  the  two  scribes,  Mr. 
Byfield  and  Mr.  Roborough.  The  house  is  all  well  hung 
[with  tapestry],  and  hes  a  good  fyre,  which  is  some  dainties 
at  London.  Foranent  the  table,  upon  the  Proloqutor's  right 
hand,  there  are  three  or  four  rankes  of  formes.  On  the 
lowest  we  five  doe  sit.  Upon  the  other,  at  our  backs,  the 
members  of  Parliament  deputed  to  the  Assemblie.  On  the 
formes  foranent  us,  on  the  Proloqutor's  left  hand,  going 
from  the  upper  end  of  the  house  to  the  chimney,  and  at  the 
other  end  of  the  house,  and  backsyde  of  the  table,  till  it 
come  about  to  our  seats,  are  four  or  five  stages  of  forms, 
whereupon  their  divines  sitts  as  they  please ;  albeit  com- 
monlie  they  keep  the  same  place.  From  the  chimney  to 
the  door  there  are  no  seats,  but  a  voyd  for  passage.  The 
Lords  of  Parliament  use  to  sit  on  chairs,  in  that  voyd,  about 
the  fire.  .  .  .  We  meet  every  day  of  the  week,  but  Saturday. 
We  sitt  commonlie  from  nine  to  one  or  two  afternoon.  The 
Proloqutor  at  the  beginning  and  end  hes  a  short  prayer. 
The  man,  as  the  world  knows,  is  very  learned  in  the  ques- 
tions he  hes  studied,  and  very  good,  beloved  of  all,  and 
highlie  esteemed  ;  but  merelie  bookish,  and  not  much,  as 
it  seems,  acquaint  with  conceived  prayer,  [and]  among  the 
unfittest  of  all  the  company  for  any  action  ;  so  after  the 
prayer  he  sitts  mute.  It  was  the  canny  convoyance  of  these 
who  guides  most  matters  for  their  own  interest  to  plant  such 
a  man  of  purpose  in  the  chaire.  The  one  assessour,  our 
good  friend  Mr.  Whyte,  hes  keeped  in  of  the  gout  since 
our  coming  ;  the  other.  Dr.  Burgess,  a  very  active  and 
sharpe  man,  supplies,  so  farr  as  is  decent,  the  Proloqutor's 
place.  Ordinarlie  there  will  be  present  above  threescore 
of  their  divines.     These  are  divided  in  [to]  three  Commit- 

frre-hall  or  high  hall  which  was  demolished  even  in  his  own  life- 
time, and  was  of  different  proportions.     Letters^  vol.  iii.  p.  438. 


Taking  of  Solemn  League  and  Covenant. 


II 


tees  ;  in  one  whereof  every  man  is  a  member.  No  man  is 
excluded  who  pleases  to  come  to  any  of  the  three.  Every 
Committee,  as  the  Parliament  gives  order  in  wryte  to  take 
any  purpose  to  consideration,  takes  a  portion,  and  in  their 
afternoon  meeting  prepares  matters  for  the  Assemblie,  setts 
doune  their  minde  in  distinct  propositions,  backs  their  pro- 
positions with  texts  of  Scripture.  After  the  prayer,  Mr. 
By  field  the  scribe,  reads  the  proposition  and  Scriptures, 
whereupon  the  Assemblie  debates  in  a  most  grave  and 
orderlie  way.  No  man  is  called  up  to  speak  [as  was  then 
the  custom  in  the  Scotch  Assembly]  ;  bot  who  stands  up 
of  his  own  accord,  he  speaks  so  long  as  he  will  without  in- 
terruption. If  two  or  three  stand  up  at  once,  then  the  di- 
vines confusedlie  calls  on  his  name  whom  they  desyre  to 
hear  first  :  On  whom  the  loudest  and  maniest  voices  call, 
he  speaks.  No  man  speaks  to  any  but  to  the  Proloqutor. 
They  harangue  long  and  very  learnedlie.  They  studie  the 
questions  w^ell  before  hand,  and  prepare  their  speeches  ; 
but  withall  the  men  are  exceeding  prompt,  and  well  spoken. 
I  doe  marvell  at  the  very  accurate  and  extemporall  replyes 
that  many  of  them  usuallie  doe  make.  When,  upon  every 
proposition  by  itself,  and  on  everie  text  of  Scripture  that  is 
brought  to  confirme  it,  every  man  who  will  hes  said  his 
whole  minde,  and  the  replyes,  and  duplies,  and  triplies,  are 
heard  ;  then  the  most  part  calls,  To  the  question.  Byfield 
the  scribe  rises  from  the  table,  and  comes  to  the  Proloqutor's 
chair,  who,  from  the  scribe's  book,  reads  the  proposition, 
and  says,  as  many  as  are  in  opinion  that  the  question  is 
well  stated  in  the  proposition,  let  them  say  Aye  ;  when  Aye 
is  heard,  he  says,  as  many  as  think  otherwise,  say  No.  If 
the  difference  of  Aye's  and  No's  be  cleare,  as  usuallie  it  is, 
then  the  question  is  ordered  by  the  scribes,  and  they  go  on 
to  debate  the  first  Scripture  alleadged  forproof  of  the  propo- 
sition. If  the  sound  of  Aye  and  No  be  near  equall,  then 
sayes  the  Proloqutor,  as  many  as  say  Aye,  stand  up  ;  while 
they  stand,  the  scribe  and  others  number  them  in  their 
minde  ;  when  they  sitt  down,  the  No's  are  bidden  stand, 
and  they  likewise  are  numbered.  This  way  is  clear  enough, 
and  saves  a  great  deal  of  time,  which  we  spend  in  reading 
our  catalogue.  When  a  question  is  once  ordered,  there  is 
12 


I  "j^i  Arrival  of  Scottish   Com 


niissioncrs  : 


no  more  debate  of  that  matter ;  but  if  a  man  will  vaige,  he 
is  quicklie  taken  up  by  Mr.  Assessor,  or  many  others,  con- 
fusedlie  crying,  Speak  to  order,  to  order.  No  man  contra- 
dicts another  expresslie  by  name,  but  most  discreetlie  speaks 
to  the  Proloqutor,  and  at  most  holds  on  the  generall,  The 
Reverend  brother,  who  latelie  or  last  spoke,  on  this  hand, 
on  that  syde,  above,  or  below.  I  thought  meet  once  for  all 
to  give  yow  a  taste  of  the  outward  form  of  their  Assemblie. 
They  follow  the  way  of  their  Parliament.  Much  of  their 
way  is  good,  and  worthie  of  our  imitation  :  ^  only  their 
longsomenesse  is  vvofull  at  this  time,  when  the  Church  and 
Kingdome  lyes  under  a  most  lamentable  anarchy  and  con- 
fusion." 

Many  memorable  meetings  have  taken  place  in 
this  Jerusalem  Chamber  since  the  middle  of  the 
17th  century,  but  to  the  descendants  of  the  old 
Puritans,  perhaps  none  more  memorable  than  that 
which  took  place  on  the  22d  July  1875,  when  the 
representatives  of  the  Presbyterian  churches  of 
England,  Scotland,  Ireland,  the  United  States,  and 
Canada,  having  agreed  on  the  basis  of  our  general 
Presbyterian  Alliance,  adjourned  to  the  old  Abbey 
of  Westminster,  and  under  the  guidance  of  its 
kindly  Dean,  clad  not  in  his  robes  of  office,  but  in 
plain  black  gown  and  bands,  streamed  into  and 
filled  the  old  chamber  where  their  fathers  sat  and 
elaborated  those  standards  which  we  still  revere. 
The  Dean,  taking  the  chair  and  asking  us  to 
regard  him  for  the  time  as  our  Prolocutor,  pro- 
ceeded   in  the  frankest  way  to    discuss  with   us 

1  It  has  been  adopted  more  entirely  by  the  American  tlian  it  yet 
has  by  the  Scottish  churches. 


Taking  of  Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  1 79 

various  details  referred  to  in  the  above  extract 
from  Baillie ;  with  a  merry  twinkle  in  his  eye  he 
quoted  to  us  some  of  the  sharp  sayings  of  Selden, 
and  promised  that,  in  the  series  of  decorations  of 
a  historical  character  then  being  arranged  round 
the  walls  of  the  chamber,  a  place  would  be  given 
to  the  great  Puritan  Assembly.  This  promise  he 
was  spared  to  fulfill,  though  he  has  made  choice 
of  an  incident  which,  notwithstanding  the  halo  of 
romance  with  which  tradition  has  surrounded  it, 
is  of  very  doubtful  authenticity. 

It  was  on  the  I4tli  September  that  intimation 
was  given  to  the  Assembly  that  certain  Commis- 
sioners from  the  Church  of  Scotland  had  arrived, 
and  desired  next  day  to  come  in  to  the  Assembly, 
as  they  had  been  authorized  by  the  House  to  do. 
These  were  Alexander  Henderson,  George  Gillespie 
— the  one  their  most  trusted  leader,  the  other  their 
ablest  debater — and  John,  Lord  Maitland,  then  a 
"  very  gracious  youth,"  and  found  most  useful  in 
keeping  up  friendly  relations  between  the  Scotch 
and  the  House  of  Lords.  When  they  appeared 
the  following  day,  the  Covenant,  as  finally  adjusted, 
was  beincf  read,  and  when  that  had  been  finished, 
an  address  of  welcome  was  made  to  them  by  the 
Prolocutor,  and  seconded  by  the  ever-ready  and 
copious  Dr.  Hoyle,  something  being  added  by  Mr. 
Case,  though  he  had  not  been  specially  appointed 
to  speak  as  the  others  liad  been.     Henderson,  in 


1 80  ArjHval  of  Scottish   Commissioners  : 

name  of  the  Scottish  Commissioners,  made  a 
suitable  reply  to  these  addresses,  expressing  the 
deep  sympathy  of  the  Scottish  nation  with  them  in 
their  many  troubles,  their  earnest  resolve  to  make 
common  cause  with  them  in  the  war,  and  to  aid 
them  to  their  utmost  power.  He  also  expressed 
their  readiness  as  Commissioners  to  take  part  in 
the  important  work  in  which  the  Assembly  was 
engaged.  At  the  same  time  he  claimed  that,  in 
all  matters  of  uniformity  between  the  churches  and 
the  two  kingdoms,  they  should  be  dealt  with,  not 
as  so  many  units  in  the  Assembly,  but  as  the 
representatives  of  one  of  the  covenanting  churches 
and  nations.^     After  this  the  Assembly  resumed 

^  I  have  been  often  asked  whether  the  Scottish  Commissioners 
took  part  in  the  various  votes  that  occurred  during  the  years  in 
which  they  attended.  The  address  of  Henderson  above  referred 
to  distinctly  explains  the  position  of  himself  and  his  brethren. 
They  had  been  admitted  by  the  English  House  of  Parliament  simply 
to  "  be  present  and  to  debate  on  occasion,'^  and  they  took  full  ad- 
vantage of  the  privilege  but  they  never  took  part  in  the  vote.  As 
Baillie  says  in  his  letter  of  December,  1643,  to  Spang  in  Holland  : 
"  When  our  Commissioners  came  up,  they  were  desired  to  sit  as 
ffiembers  of  the  Assembly,  but  they  wisely  declined  to  do  so ;  Ijut 
since  they  came  up  as  commissioners  from  our  national  Church  to 
treat  for  uniformity,  they  required  to  be  dealt  with  in  that  capacity. 
They  were  willing,  as  private  men,  to  sit  in  the  Assembly,  and 
upon  occasion  to  give  their  advice  in  points  debated ;  but  for  the 
uniformity  they  required  z.  Committee  might  be  appointed  from  the 
Parliament  and  the  Assembly  to  treat  with  them  thereanent.  All 
these  after  some  harsh  enough  debates  were  granted  ;  so  once  a 
week  and  sometimes  oftener  there  is  a  Committee  of  some  Lords, 
Commons  and  Divines  which  meets  with  us  anent  our  Commis- 
sion." They  were  put  in  their  full  number  on  all  committees  re- 
lating  to   the   prepared    Confession   of    Faith,    Catechisms,   and 


Taking  of  Solemn  League  a7td  Covenant.  1 8 1 

consideration  of  the  Covenant,  and  full  explana- 
tions were  given  to  the  Scotch  Commissioners  of 
the  clauses  which  had  been  previously  debated 
and  the  alterations  proposed  to  be  made  on  one 
or  two  of  them.  When  all  had  passed  with  gen- 
eral consent  and  cheerfulness,  and  Dr.  Burgess, 
who  had  been  suspended  for  opposing  it,  but  had 
since  made  his  peace  with  the  Houses,  had  also 
made  his  explanations  to  the  Assembly,  the  Pro- 
locutor gave  thanks  to  God  "  for  the  sweet  con- 
currence "  in  the  Covenant.  It  was  resolved  that 
it  should  forthwith  be  taken  by  the  Houses  and 
the  Assembly  with  all  solemnity.  Accordingly, 
on  Monday  the  25th  September  the  members  of 
the  House  of  Commons  and  of  the  Assembly  met 
for  this  purpose  in  St.  Margaret's  Church,  West- 
minster. This  little  church  on  the  north  side  of 
the  Abbey  is  almost  dwarfed  by  its  more  stately 
neighbor,  but  it  had  a  consequence  of  its  own 
from  its  being  the  church  to  which  the  members 

Directories  for  Public  Worship,  and  Church  Government,  and  took 
part  in  the  Assembly  in  the  debates  arising  out  of  the  reports  of 
these  committees,  but  they  never  voted — not  even  on  the  burning 
question  that  "  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  King  and  Head  of  the 
Church  has  appointed  a  government  therein  in  the  hand  of  Church 
officers  distinct  from  the  Civil  Magistrate."  See  Minutes  of  the 
Sessions  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  p.  252.  If  the  vote  on  any 
of  the  questions  of  uniformity  was  not  to  their  mind  they  brought  it 
up  before  the  Committee  previously  mentioned  in  which  Scotland 
and  England  were  on  an  equal  or  nearly  equal  footing  and  thus 
occasionally  though  rarely  overruled  decisions  of  the  divines  of 
the  Assembly. 


1 82  Arrival  of  Scottish   Coiiiniissioncrs  : 

of  the  Houses,  and  especially  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  were  accustomed  on  special  occasions 
to  resort,  and  where,  after  the  meeting  of  the 
Long  Parliament  they  had  insisted  on  having  the 
Communion  administered  to  them  in  the  old  way 
which  had  been  followed  in  most  parish  churches 
before  Laud  began  his  innovations,  i.e.  with  the 
Communion  table  brought  out  from  under  the 
East  wall  into  the  middle  of  the  church  or  chan- 
cel. On  that  occasion  Dr.  Gauden  had  officiated, 
and  preached  a  very  notable  sermon,  {jfojirnals^ 
ii.  24,  37,41-) 

The  following  is  Lightfoot's  ^  account  of  the 
memorable  service  at  the  taking  of  the  Covenant 
on  25th  September  : — "After  a  Psalm  given  by  Mr. 
Wilson,  picking  several  verses  to  suit  the  present 
occasion  out  of  several  Psalms,  Mr.  White  prayed 
near  upon  an  hour.  Then  he  came  down  out  of 
the  pulpit,  and  Mr.  Nye  went  up  and  made  an 
exhortation  of  another  hour  long.  After  he  had 
done,  Mr.  Henderson,  out  of  the  seat  where  he 
sat,  did  the  like — all  tending  to  forward  the  Cove- 
nant. Then  Mr.  Nye  being  in  the  pulpit  still, 
read  the  Covenant,  and  at  every  clause  of  it  the 
House  of  Commons  and  we  of  the  Assembly  held 
up  our  hands  and  gave  our  consent  thereby  to  it, 
and  then  all  went  into  the  chancel  and  subscribed 
our  hands.     Afterwards  we  had  a  prayer  by  Dr. 

'^Journal  in  vol.  xiii.  p.  19  of  Pitman's  edition  of  his  works. 


Ta kin  (^  of  Solemn  Leagtic  and  Covenant,  i  %i 

Gouge,  and  ano.ther  psalm  by  Mr.  Wilson,  and 
departed  to  the  Assembly  again,  and  after  prayer 
adjourned  till  Thursday  morning  because  of  the 
fast."  Two  hundred  and  twenty-eight  members 
of  the  House  of  Commons  on  that  day  lifted  up 
their  hands  to  heaven,  worshiping  the  great  name 
of  God,  and  promising  to  be  faithful  in  His  cov- 
enant. Among  these  is  found  the  name  of  Ou'ver 
Cromwell,  who,  like  Nye,  was  either  not  disinclined 
at  that  juncture  to  make  common  cause  with  the 
Presbyterians,  or  wished  not  to  be  thought  so  as 
yet.  In  a  few  years  after,  acting  on  the  principle 
laid  down  by  Nye,  in  a  debate  to  which  I  have 
previously  referred,  that  national  ecclesiastical  as- 
semblies were  pernicious  to  civil  states  and  king- 
doms, Cromwell  by  his  soldiers  forcibly  dissolved 
the  General  Assembly  of  the  Scottish  Church 
which  they  thought  he  had  solemnly  covenanted 
to  preserve  to  them.^ 

A  few  days  before  the  Covenant  was  taken  by 
the  House  of  Commons  the  tide  of  war  which  had 
set  in  so  heavily  against  them  had  again  turned. 

^  "  This  act  of  tyranny,"  as  Dr.  M'Crie  says,  "  must  of  course 
be  pronounced  justifiable  on  the  above  principle;  "  but  then  what 
becomes  of  the  other  principle  ostentatiously  advocated  by  both 
of  them,  of  tolerating  all  Churches?  Was  it  that  Cromwell,  like 
many  less  noble-hearted  and  less  Christian  men,  found  it  easier 
to  cut  than  to  loose  the  Gordian  knot,  to  govern  by  military  power 
than  to  consolidate  the  institutions  of  the  country  and  to  guide  and 
control  the  deliberations  of  its  free  representative  assemblies,  either 
civil  or  religious  ? 


1 84  Arrival  of  Scottish   Commissioners  : 

Gloucester,  besieged  "  by  the  flower  of  the  EngHsh 
nobihty  and  gentry  with  courage  as  high  as  became 
their  birth,"  had  been  reheved  by  the  ParHamentary 
forces  and  a  battle  had  been  fought  at  Newbury  in 
Berkshire  on  Wednesday,  20th  September,  particu- 
lars of  which  must  have  reached  them  before  they 
held  up  their  hands  to  heaven.  "  Perchance,"  Dr. 
Stoughton  has  it,  "  some  held  them  up  all  the  more 
firmly  in  consequence  of  what  they  had  just  been 
told  of  the  persistent  valor  of  the  army.  For  all 
along  the  valley  .  .  .  Essex's  men,  wearing  fern  and 
broom  in  their  hats,  had  fought  from  four  o'clock 
in  the  morning  till  ten  at  night."  "  Much  prow- 
ess," says  the  contemporary  account,  "  was  showed 
on  both  sides,  and  when  night  came  on  the  royal 
forces"  still  stood  in  good  order  on  the  further 
side  of  the  heath,  but  by  next  morning  they  were 
gone,  and  the  Parliamentary  army  marched  quietly 
over  the  ground  they  had  occupied.^  On  his  re- 
turn to  London  the  Lord  General  was  received  with 
every  demonstration  of  joy — even  the  Assembly 
of  Divines  waiting  on  him  in  the  painted  chamber 

1  The  same  morning  the  following  paper  was  received  by  Essex 
from  Prince  Rupert :  "  We  desire  to  know  from  the  Earl  of  Essex 
whether  he  have  the  Viscount  Falkland,  Captain  Bertue,  etc.,  pris- 
oners, or  whether  he  have  their  dead  bodies,  and  if  he  have,  that 
liberty  may  be  granted  to  their  servants  to  fetch  them  away." 
Truly,  as  the  chronicler  concludes,  "  there  is  no  victory  in  civil 
war  that  can  bring  the  conqueror  a  perfect  triumph,"  and  Essex 
might  well  be  "  sorry  for  the  loss  of  so  many  gallant  gentlemen 
on  the  other  side." 


Taking  of  Solemn  League  and  Covenant.  1 85 

to  offer  liim  their  congratulations.  The  Prolocutor 
made  a  speech  on  the  occasion,  and  the  General 
returned  thanks  for  the  honor  done  to  him. 

It  was  not  till  the  15th  October  that  the  Cove- 
nant was  sworn  by  Essex  and  the  peers  of  the  Par- 
liamentary party — *'  the  little  house  of  Lords,"  as 
Baillie  calls  them, — along  with  the  city  authorities, 
the  officers  of  the  army,  and  the  Scotch,  resident 
in  the  city  ;  and  the  same  day,  or  on  the  Lord's  day 
following,  it  was  tendered  in  a  number  of  the  city 
churches  to  the  parishioners,  and  soon  after  was 
sent  into  the  provinces  along  with  an  address 
explaining  those  things  in  it  which  seemed  to 
create  difficulty,  and  urging  its  being  taken  with- 
out delay  by  all  leal-hearted  supporters  of  the  Par- 
liamentary cause. 

The  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  being  adopted, 
the  Scotch  did  not  delay  to  urge  on  the  practical 
fulfillment  of  those  engagements  for  reformation 
and  uniformity  in  religion,  which  had  been  placed 
in  the  forefront  of  it  and  gave  it  its  main  value  in 
their  eyes.  The  Westminster  Assembly,  originally 
called  to  reform  the  government  and  liturgy  of 
the  Church  of  England  and  to  vindicate  and  clear 
its  doctrines  from  false  aspersions,  had  now  its 
mission  extended,  and  elevated  into  the  prepara- 
tion of  a  common  confession  of  faith,  catechisms 
and  directories  for  public  worship  and  church- 
government  for  the  churches  of  the  three  king- 


1 86  Arrival  of  Scottish   Commissio7iers  : 

doms.  The  Scotch  had  long  maintained  that  the 
question  of  church-government  was  the  true  key 
of  the  position,  and  must  be  first  won  if  they  were 
to  be  settled  rightly.  Others  than  mere  worldly 
tacticians  might  have  hinted  to  them,  that  the  dis- 
cussion of  it  was  likely  to  engender  strife  and 
begin  alienations,  which  it  was  their  duty  and 
might  be  their  wisdom  to  allay  or  delay  to  the 
very  uttermost ;  but  they  deemed  it  so  necessary 
that  they  brought  every  influence  to  bear  on  the 
Houses  to  induce  them  to  give  directions  that  it 
should  be  set  about  without  loss  of  time  ;  and  with 
all  their  abhorrence  of  Erastianism  they  did  not 
scruple  on  various  occasions  to  bring  the  influence 
of  the  Houses  to  bear  on  the  Assembly  in  this  way. 
So  on  Thursday,  I2th  October,  the  Assembly 
"  being  at  that  instant  very  busy  upon  the  XVIth 
Article,  and  upon  that  clause  of  it  which  mentions 
departure  from  grace  I'  there  came  an  order  to  them 
from  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  enjoining^  them 
forthwith  to  "  confer  and  treat  among  themselves  of 
such  a  discipline  and  government  as  may  be  most 
agreeable  to  God's  holy  word,  and  most  apt  to  pro- 
cure and  preserve  the  peace  of  the  Church  at  home, 
and  nearer  agreement  with  the  Church  of  Scotland 
and  other  Reformed  Churches  abroad ;  "  .  .  .  and 
also  of"  the  directory  of  worship,  or  liturgy,  here- 
after to  be  in  the   Church,  and   to   deliver  their 

'  Lightfoot's  yb^rwa/,  p.  17. 


Extension  of  Assembly  s  Conimission,  etc.  187 

opinions  and  advices  of  and  touching  the  same  to 
both  or  either  of  the  Houses  of  Parhament  with 
all  convenient  speed.  .  .  ."  It  was  in  pursuance  of 
this  order  that  they  began,  and  prosecuted  to  the 
bitter  end  those  almost  interminable  debates  with 
the  Independents  which,  fragmentarily  as  they  are 
taken  down,  fill  so  large  a  portion  of  vols.  i.  and  ii. 
of  the  MS.  minutes  of  the  Assembly,  and  which 
are  more  summarily  and  sometimes  more  vividly 
described  in  Lightfoot's/^///'//^?/^  and  in  Gillespie's 
Notes.2  -pj^g  i,idimus  of  the  several  votes  and 
resolutions  prefixed  to  the  latter,  and  probably 
copied  for  Gillespie  from  some  official  document, 
is  only  less  valuable,  as  a  synopsis  of  their  labors 
in  this  department  of  their  work,  than  the  "  Propo- 
sitions concerning  Church-Government,"  and  the 
"  Directory  for  Church-Government,  Ordination  of 
ministers,  and  Excommunication,"  in  which  they 
themselves  embodied  the  matured  results  of  their 
deliberations.  The  work  began,  like  all  their  most 
serious  work,  with  a  solemn  fast — a  day  of  humilia- 
tion and  prayer  to  implore  God's  guidance  in  and 
blessing  on  their  labors.  Burgess,  Goodwin,  and 
Stanton  led  their  devotions,  and  Whitaker  and 
Palmer  preached.  On  the  two  following  days  the 
method  of  procedure  was  considered,  and  several 
keen  discussions  took  place  upon  it,  as  to  whether 
they  should  begin   by   debating   generally  if  the 

1  Forming  vol,  xiii.  of  his  Works.     '^  In  vol.  ii.  of  his  Works. 


I SS     Christ  the  Head  of  the  Church, 

Scripture  contains  a  rule  of  church-government, 
or  by  defining  what  is  the  meaning  of  this  word 
Church,  or,  passing  over  these  questions  in  the  first 
instance,  should  proceed  at  once  to  particulars,  and 
debate  of  the  government  and  governors  of  the 
Church.  This  last  course  was  ultimately  agreed 
on  as  likely  to  stave  off  as  long  as  possible  the 
discussion  of  matters,  on  which  they  already  began 
to  fear  they  might  not  be  able  to  secure  entire 
agreement.  The  next  day  careful  and  elaborate 
reports  were  presented  to  the  Assembly  by  the 
second  and  third  committees  on  the  subject  of  the 
officers  of  the  Church.  The  third  committee  pre- 
sented the  first  draft  of  that  marvellous  paragraph 
which  still  stands  at  the  head  of  the  Propositions 
concerning  Church-Government  as  usually  printed 
in  Scotland  :  "  Jesus  Christ,  upon  whose  shoulders 
the  government  is,  whose  name  is  called  Wonder- 
ful, Counsellor,  The  mighty  God,  The  everlasting 
Father,  The  Prince  of  Peace,  of  the  increase  of 
whose  government  and  peace  there  shall  be 
no  end,  etc.,  He  being  ascended  far  above  all 
heavens  and  filling  all  things,  etc.,  hath  appointed 
officers  in  the  Church  the  names  whereof  are 
these  "  (or,  as  it  was  slightly  altered  by  the  As- 
sembly, "  hath  given  all  officers  necessary  for  the 
edification  of  His  Church  .  .  .  some  whereof  are 
extraordinary,  some  ordinary  ").  To  this  is  sub- 
joined a  list  of  their  names  and  of  the  passages  of 


Christ  the  Head  of  the  Church,     1 89 

Scripture  which  refer  to  them.  The  second  com- 
mittee gave  in  a  paragraph  which,  with  slight 
alterations,  passed  the  Assembly  on  the  following 
day,  and  is  inserted  by  Gillespie  in  the  vidimus 
prefixed  to  his  notes,  though  it  has  not  been  for- 
mally embodied  either  in  the  Propositions  or  the 
Directory:  "Christ,  who  is  priest,  prophet,  king 
and  head  of  the  Church,  hath  fulness  of  power,  and 
containeth  all  other  offices  by  way  of  eminency  in 
himself,  and  therefore  hath  many  of  their  names 
attributed  to  him."  To  this  were  appended  the 
Scripture  proofs,  and  detailed  enumeration  of  the 
names  of  office  given  to  Christ  in  Scripture,  viz., 
apostle,  pastor  or  shepherd,  bishop  or  overseer, 
teacher,  minister  or  btdmvoz.  The  "  captiousness" 
of  the  dissenting  brethren  began  to  show  itself 
even  here,  Mr.  Goodwin  excepting  against  the  in- 
troduction of  Christ's  headship,  because  that  was 
properly  no  office  in  the  Church,  but  over  it.  In 
this  debate  also  one  of  many  conclusive  proofs  was 
furnished,  that  however  the  divines  may  for  con- 
venience have  availed  themselves  of  the  little  gilt 
English  Bibles,  which,  as  Selden  taunted  them,  they 
carried  in  their  pockets,  they  could,  when  need 
required,  refer  to  and   discuss  the  original  text.^ 

^  W^xdoo'C'?,  Journal,  Gillespie's  notes,  and  the  MS.  minutes  show 
how  frequently  and  ably  this  was  done.  Tn  fact  there  were  other 
little  gilt  books  then  in  use  among  ministers,  specimens  of  which 
are  still  preserved, — Greek  New  Testaments  bound  up  with  Eng- 
lish metrical  Psalms,  which  Selden  may  have  mistaken  for  the  other. 


190     Debates  on    Ojficers  of  CJmreh. 

The  last  place  adduced  by  the  committee  in  proof 
of  the  kingship  of  Christ  was  Rev.  xv.  3,  where, 
according  to  the  common  or  received  text,  he  is 
called  King  of  Saints  {jiaailvj^  rcov  S-yuou).  Even 
Goodwin,  who  had  objected  to  the  other  proofs  as 
not  quite  germane  to  the  subject,  was  disposed  to 
pass  this.  But  Seaman,  the  great  Orientalist,  re- 
minded them  that  the  reading  in  some  copies  was 
not  Ayuoi^  but  auovcov,  and  Lightfoot  added  that 
this  reading  was  confirmed  by  the  Syriac  version, 
whereupon  the  passage  was  not  further  pressed. 

Long  and  exhaustive  debates  followed  about 
the  officers  of  the  Church,  both  the  extraordinary, 
who  were  defined  to  be  the  apostle,  the  evangelist, 
and  the  prophet;  and  the  ordinary,  under  which 
designation  were  included  the  pastor  and  teacher, 
the  elder  and  the  deacon.  There  was  much  dis- 
cussion as  to  whether  the  teacher  or  doctor  should 
be  defined  as  an  officer  distinct  from  the  pastor,  as 
he  had  been  by  several  of  the  Reformed  Churches 
in  their  confessions  or  their  books  of  discipline,  or 
should  be  represented  simply  as  a  pastor  discharg- 
ing a  particular  set  of  duties,  which  it  was  compe- 
tent for  all  to  discharge,  but  which,  where  there 
were  more  than  one  pastor,  might  be  compe- 
tently assigned  to  that  one  among  them,  whose 
gifts  best  fitted  him  for  teaching  or  expounding 
Scripture.  The  Independents  contended  not  only 
that  the  offices  were  distinct,  but  also  that  every 


Arrival  of  Scottish   Commissioners.   1 9 1 

congregation,  as  far  as  possible,  should  have  its 
doctor  as  well  as  its  pastor.  The  Scots  rather  in- 
clined to  distinguish  the  offices,  but  to  hold,  with 
their  own  second  book  of  discipline,  that  the  chief 
use  of  the  doctor  was  in  universities  and  schools. 
But  the  English  divines,  who  were  many  of  them 
reluctantly  giving  up  bishops,  because  they  had 
no  proper  divine  institution  to  urge  for  them, 
were  altogether  averse  to  recognizing  any  divine 
institution  of  the  doctor  as  essentially  a  distinct 
office-bearer  from  the  pastor.  Burgess,  Herle, 
Temple,  Palmer,  and  Vines  all  united  in  this ;  and 
Gataker  reminded  them,  that  matters  of  divine  in- 
stitution were  never  left  obscure  and  indefinite  in 
Scripture,  but  "  like  stars  of  the  first  magnitude 
shone  out  bright  and  clear."  On  Monday,  20th 
November,  while  this  debate  was  still  going  on, 
the  other  two  Scotch  Commissioners,  Samuel 
Rutherfurd,  who  was  to  take  so  active  a  part  in 
the  debates  of  the  Assembly,  and  Robert  Baillie, 
who  was  to  preserve  in  his  letters  such  a  life-like 
narrative  of  them,  and  whose  first  impressions  of 
the  Assembly  I  have  quoted,  were  welcomed  by 
the  Prolocutor  **  in  a  long  harangue,"  and  took 
their  places  in  the  Assembly.  But,  even  with 
their  help,  the  Scotch  Commissioners  failed  to 
carry  the  chief  of  the  English  divines  fully  with 
them  in  regard  to  the  doctor's  offixe,  and,  with  the 
assistance  of  Dr.  Burg-ess  and  his  committee,  Mr. 


192  Debates  on  Elder  s   Office. 

Henderson  endeavored  to  arrange  a  "  temper,"  as 
Lightfoot  calls  it,  that  is,  an  accommodation  which, 
by  a  benign  interpretation,  would  leave  both  par- 
ties free  to  enjoy  their  own  sense  in  the  matter 
disputed  between  them.  The  first  attempt  did 
not  go  far  enough  to  satisfy  the  English,  but  the 
second  was  more  successful,  and  came  near  to  the 
words  which  we  still  have  in  the  Propositions  con- 
cerning Church-Government  as  ultimately  passed 
and  printed.  It  was  while  this  debate  was  going 
on,  that  an  order  came  from  the  House  of  Com- 
mons that  the  Assembly  should  report,  whether 
Mr.  Rous's  psalms  might  be  authorized  to  be  sung 
in  churches,  and  each  of  the  three  committees  was 
directed  by  the  Assembly  to  examine  and  report 
on  fifty  of  these  psalms.  All  were  carefully  re- 
vised, and  a  favorable  report  on  the  version  was 
ultimately  presented  to  the  Houses. 

The  subject  of  ruling  elders  was  next  taken  up, 
and  the  discussions  about  their  office  were  more 
keen  and  prolonged  than  those  about  the  doctor's. 
Here  too,  at  least  for  a  time,  the  Scotch  found 
themselves  forsaken  by  a  number  of  their  best 
English  friends,  and  that  on  a  question  which  they 
were  far  more  unwilling  to  settle  by  compromise 
than  the  preceding  one.  The  following  is  Baillie's 
somewhat  homely  but  graphic  narrative  of  the 
proceedings  upon  this  question  •} — "  The  next  point 

^Letters  and  Journals, \o\.  ii.  pp.  no,  in,  also  116. 


Debates  on  Elder  s   Office.  193 

whereon  we  stick  is  ruling  elders.  Many  a  brave 
dispute  have  we  had  upon  them  these  ten  days.  .  .  . 
I  profess  my  marveling  at  the  great  learning, 
quickness,  and  eloquence,  together  with  the  great 
courtesy  and  discretion  in  speaking  of  these  men. 
Sundry  of  the  ablest  were  flat  against  the  institu- 
tion of  any  such  office  by  divine  right,  as  Dr. 
Smith,  Dr.  Temple,  Mr.  Gataker,  Mr.  Vines,  Mr. 
Price,  Mr.  Hall,  and  many  more."  Then  follows  a 
clause,  which  I  can  reconcile  with  the  facts  of  the 
case  as  disclosed  in  the  MS.  minutes  of  the  Assem- 
bly, only  by  taking  it  away  from  the  sentence  going 
before  and  prefixing  it  to  the  sentence  which 
follows.  "  Besides  the  Independents,  who  truly 
spake  much  and  exceeding  well,  the  most  of  the 
Synod  were  in  our  opinion,  and  reasoned  bravely 
for  it,  such  as  Mr.  Seaman,  Mr.  Walker,  Mr. 
Marshall,  Mr.  Newcomen,  Mr.  Young,  Mr.  Calamy. 
Sundry  times  Mr.  Henderson,  Mr.  Rutherford, 
Mr.  Gillespie — all  three  spoke  exceeding  well. 
When  all  were  tired  it  came  to  the  question. 
There  was  no  doubt  we  would  have  carried  it  by 
far  more  voices ;  but  because  the  opposites  were 
men  very  considerable,  above  all  gracious  and 
learned  little  Palmer,  we  agreed  upon  a  committee 
to  satisfy  if  it  were  possible  the  dissenters.  For 
this  end  we  met  to-day,  and  I  hope  ere  all  be  done 
we  shall  agree.  All  of  them  were  ever  willing  to 
admit   of  elders  in  a  prudential  way   (/.  e.  as  an 

13 


194  Debates  on  Elder  s   Office. 

expedient  human  arrangement),  but  this  to  us 
seemed  most  dangerous  and  unhappy,  and  there- 
fore was  peremptorily  rejected.  We  trust  to  carry 
at  last,  with  the  contentment  of  sundry  once 
opposite,  and  the  silence  of  all,  their  divine  and 
Scriptural  institution." 

"  This,"  Baillie  adds,  "  is  a  point  of  high  conse- 
quence, and  on  no  other  do  we  expect  so  great  dif- 
ficulty except  alone  on  Independency,  wherewith 
we  purpose  not  to  meddle  in  haste,  till  it  please 
God  to  advance  our  army,  which  we  expect  will 
much  assist  our  arguments."  How  far  the  expec- 
tation, expressed  by  Baillie  in  the  above  extract, 
was  ultimately  realized  is  a  question  on  which  dif- 
ference of  opinion  has  long  existed,  and  may  fairly 
exist,  even  among  those  who  peruse  with  care  the 
notes  of  the  debates  contained  in  the  MS.  minutes 
and  in  Lightfoot'sy<9//r;/^/.  My  own  opinion  is  that 
the  utmost  that  the  Assembly  at  this  stage  of  its 
proceedings  could  be  got  to  formulate  was,  that  the 
office  of  elder  was  scripturally  warrantable,  not  that 
it  had  been  expressly  instituted  as  an  office  that 
was  to  be  of  perpetual  and  iinivcysal  obligation  in 
the  Church  like  the  ministry,  or  that  that  was  not 
to  be  regarded  as  a  true  or  complete  congregational 
church  which  wanted  it,  but  only  "  that  Christ 
furnisheth  some  with  gifts  for  it  and  commission 
to  exercise  them  wlien  called  thereto^  Their  main 
scriptural  warrant  for  it  and  for  the  ordination  of 


Debates  on  Elder  s   Office.  195 

those  holding  it  was  derived  not  from  the  New- 
Testament  but  from  the  Old,  from  the  example  of 
those  elders  of  the  Jewish  people  who  had  a  place 
in  the  local  councils,  as  well  as  in  the  crreat  Sanhe- 
drim  at  Jerusalem  along  with  the  priests  and  Le- 
vites.  "As  there  were  in  the  Jewish  Church  elders 
of  the  people  joined  with  the  priests  and  Levites  in 
the  government  of  the  Church,  so  Christ,  who  hath 
instituted  a  government  and  governors  ecclesias- 
tical in  the  Church,  hath  furnished  some  in  his 
Church,  besides  the  ministers  of  the  Word,  with 
gifts  for  gov^ernment  and  with  commission  to 
exercise  the  same  wJicn  called  tlicniiiito,  who  are 
to  join  with  the  ministers  in  the  government  of  the 
Church,  [which  officers  reformed  Churches  com- 
monly call  elders  "].^  The  texts  adduced  in  proof 
of  this  proposition  from  the  New  Testament  were 
Romans  xii.  7,  and  ist  Corinthians  xii.  28.  But 
neither  proof-text  was  held  by  many  of  them  to 
amount  to  a  positive  and  distinct  divine  institution 
of  this  office.  The  text,  which  was  appealed  to 
throughout  by  the  more  zealous  defenders  of  the 
divine  institution  of  the  office,  was  1st  Timothy  v. 
17,  and  had  they  got  that  inserted  among  the  proof- 
texts  they  would  have  gained  their  case  beyond 
dispute.  On  the  other  hand,  I  do  not  regard  the 
common  Presbyterian  interpretation  of  that  text 
as  having  been  positively  rejected  by  the  Assembly 

^  This  was  added  on  14th  Nov.  1644,  Lightfoot's  youmaly  p  330. 


196  Debates  on  Eldei^' s  Office. 

at  this  date — but  as  held  over  for  further  consider- 
ation if  at  any  future  period  of  their  sittings  God 
should  give  them  further  light  and  greater  unan- 
imity. While  they  did  not  indorse  at  this  period 
what  has  been  termed  the  ''  presbyter  theory  "  of 
the  elder's  office,  they  did  not,  as  some  assert,  posi- 
tively reject  it ;  and  ere  the  close  of  their  sittings, 
when  "  gracious  and  learned  little  Palmer "  had 
gone  to  his  reward,  and  the  Scotch  Commissioners 
had  returned  to  their  native  land,  Mr.  Marshall,  in 
preparing  answers  to  the  so-called  Erastian  Queries 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  brought  into  the 
Assembly  from  the  committee  the  following  pro- 
position : — "  The  government  which  is  Jure  divino 
is  that  which  is  by  preaching  and  ruling  elders  in 
presbyteries  and  synods  by  way  of  subordination 
and  appeal  ;"  and  certain  persons  named  in  the 
minute,  being  a  majority  of  those  then  in  attend- 
ance on  the  Assembly,  judged  the  proposition  true, 
and  expressed  their  willingness  to  bring  in  the 
proofs  of  it :  viz.,  Drs.  Gouge  and  Burgess,  Messrs. 
Marshall,Case,  Whitaker,  Delmy,Cawdrey  ,Calamy, 
Young,  Sedgewick,  Ashe,  Seaman,  Gipps,  Green, 
Delamarch,  Perne,  Gibson,  Walker,  Bond,  Valen- 
tine, Conant,  and  Strickland.^  If  they  had  in  any 
sense  rejected  the  "  presbyter  theory  "  of  the  elder's 
office,  they  could  never  have  entertained  the  pro- 
position given  above,  and  referred  it  to  a  commit- 

1  Minutes  of  the  Assembly,  p.  525. 


Debates  on  Elder  s   Office.  197 

tee  to  bring  in  the  Scripture  proof  it.  Neither 
could  they  have  allowed  the  London  ministers 
under  their  very  eyes  to  have  maintained  it  in 
their  Jus  Divinum  Rcginiinis  Ecclcsiastici,  and  to 
have  adduced  in  its  support  the  obnoxious  text. 
Dury,  who  was  a  member  of  the  Assembly  and 
famous  for  his  efforts  to  promote  union  among 
the  Protestant  Churches,  in  his  Model  of  Church- 
Government,  printed  in  the  same  year,  advocated 
the  same  theory  and  by  the  same  text,  as  did  also 
Dickson  and  others  in  Scotland.  James  Guthrie 
of  Stirling,  in  his  Treatise  of  Ruling  Elders  and 
Deacons,  took  a  similar  view  of  the  office  and  of 
this  famous  text,  as  Rutherfurd  also  did  in  his 
MS.  Catechism.  And  I  hold  that  it  remains  as  free 
to  any  one  owning  the  Westminster  formularies  to 
do  so  still  as  it  was  in  the  British  Presbyterian 
Churches  before  the  Westminster  Assembly  met.^ 
If  that  Assembly  did  not  indorse  the  presbyter 
theory,  it  certainly  did  not  proscribe  it  in  any  man- 
ner of  way,  and  most  assuredly  the  Church  of 
Scotland  has  not  done  so  either  in  earlier  or  later 
times. 

But  the  subject  on  which  the  most  protracted 
and  embittered  discussions  occurred  was  that  from 
which  Baillie  and  the  Scottish  Commissioners 
shrank  as  long  as  they  possibly  could,  because 
they  foresaw  only  too  clearly,  that  another  force 

^  See  Appendix,  Note  G. 


198     Debates  on   CJmrch- Government. 

than  that  of  argument  was  being  arrayed  against 
them,  and  was  growing  in  strength  and  determina- 
tion/ and  that  however  victorious  they  might  be  in 
the  field  of  debate,  and  however  large  their  majority 
in  the  Assembly,  yet  if  their  battalions  in  the  other 
field  did  not  keep  up  with  the  "  Ironsides  "  of 
Cromwell  in  deeds  of  daring  and  prowess,  the  con- 
flict was  likely  to  end,  as  in  fact  it  did  end,  in  that 
armed  minority  overruling  Assembly,  Parliament, 
and  the  majority  of  their  supporters,  overturning 
the  constitution  from  its  foundations,  and  setting  up 
a  military  despotism — it  might  be  a  mild  and  bene- 
ficial one — but  still  replacing  the  despot  Charles 
by  one  as  absolute  and  uncontrolled  by  Parliament, 
if  far  more  capable  than  he.  The  points  to  be  dis- 
cussed were,  inter  alia,  whether  many  congrega- 
tions might  be  under  a  common  presbytery,  or 
each  with  its  own  presbytery  or  eldership  ought  to 
form  an  independent  church;  2d,  whether  appeals 
might  be  carried  from  congregations  to  a  common 
or  classical  presbytery,  and  from  that  again  to  a 
provincial  synod  and  national  assembly,  and  might 
be  authoritatively  disposed  of  by  them,  or  whether 
such  synods  and  assemblies  ought  to  be  advisory 
only ;  3d,  whether  the  power  of  ordination  to  the 
ministry  did  not  properly  vest  in  the  common  or 
classical  presbytery,  or  whether  it  might  be  com- 
petently, at  its  own  pleasure,  assumed  by  any  single 

*  Baillie's  Letters  and  yoiirnah,yo\.  ii.  p.  122. 


Debates  on   Church-Government.      199 

congregation  which  might  without  inconvenience 
associate  with  others.  These  were  questions  which, 
apart  from  pohtical  scheming  and  personal  feehng 
might,  one  would  have  thought,  have  been  calmly 
and  temperately,  and  within  reasonable  time,  dis- 
cussed and  settled,  so  far  as  the  Assembly  or  the 
Parliament  could  claim  to  settle  them.  At  first 
even,  according  to  the  confession  of  Baillie,  the 
Independents  conducted  themselves  with  becom- 
ing modesty  and  good  temper,  and  spoke  ably  and 
well.  They  signed  the  manifesto  of  the  leading 
members  of  Assembly,  dissuading  from  "  the  gath- 
ering of  churches  till  the  questions  in  dependence 
should  be  determined."'  In  that  "Apologetical 
Narration "  in  which  they  prematurely  brought 
the  controversy  before  the  public,  they  claimed  for 
themselves  ''  forbearance  in  the  midst  of  provoca- 
tions," "quiet  and  strong  patience,"  agreement  with 
their  Presbyterian  brethren  in  matters  of  doctrine, 
and  readiness  to  yield  in  matters  of  discipline  '*  to 
the  utmost  latitude  of  their  light  and  conscience," 
desiring  only  "a  latitude  in  some  lesser  differences" 

1  Certain  comideratiom  to  dissuade  men  from  further  gathering 
of  churches  at  this  juncture,  ihe  last  consideration  being  that  it  is 
not  to  be  doubted  but  the  counsels  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines  and 
the  care  of  Parliament  will  be  not  only  to  reform  and  set  up  relig- 
ion throughout  the  nation,  but  will  concur  to  preserve  whatever 
shall  appear  to  be  the  rights  of  particular  congregations  according 
to  the  Word,  and  to  bear  with  such  whose  consciences  cannot  in 
all  things  conform  to  the  public  rule  so  far  as  the  Word  of  God 
would  have  them  borne  withal.     (E.  79,  No.  16.) 


200     Debates  on   C/iu rch-Govei^nmenf. 

in  which  they  might  not  be  able  to  come  up  to  the 
common  rule.^  But  they  allowed  themselves  to  be 
unduly  provoked  by  some  passionate  replies  which 
were  made  to  their  somewhat  untimely  publication, 

1  Even  after  the  expulsion  of  Dr.  Featley  the  injunctions  of  the 
Houses  against  divulging  the  proceedings  of  the  Assembly  by 
printing  or  writing  continued  to  be  ignored.  The  following  notice 
by  an  intelligent  correspondent  of  the  Mercurius  Brifanuicus  will 
show  how  widely  hopes  of  a  favorable  settlement  at  this  time  pre- 
vailed : — "  The  Assembly  have  made  as  yet  a  happy,  peaceable, 
and  learned  progress  through  the  Articles  of  religion  and  through 
the  officers  of  the  Church,  extraordinary  and  ordinary,  and  they 
have  discussed  all  by  a  lighter  brightness  than  their  own — that  of 
the  holy  Scriptures.  I  cannot  but  expect  from  them  an  excellent 
draught  of  government  with  a  glory  more  than  ordinary,  [they] 
having  been  so  long  in  the  mount  with  God  :  for  this  I  dare  affirm 
there  is  almost  the  piety  and  learning  o(  two  nations,  England 
and  Scotland,  in  one  room."  Then  after  referring,  in  terms  of  high 
commendation,  to  their  letter  to  the  foreign  reformed  Churches, 
the  writer  proceeds  :  "  There  is  of  late  a  paper  set  out  by  our  rev- 
ei-end  brethren,  but  by  no  Independents,  viz.,  Mr.  Goodwin,  Mr. 
Nye,  Mr.  Burroughs,  Mr.  Greenhill,  Mr.  Bridge.  In  this  you  may 
see  how  long  they  hold  us  by  the  hand,  and  where  they  let  go  and 
take  us  by  the  finger.  They  have  the  same  worship,  preaching, 
praying,  and  form  of  sacraments,  the  same  church  officers,  doctors, 
pastors,  elders,  deacons,  the  same  church  censures  in  the  abridg- 
ment but  not  at  large.  So  I  suppose  here  is  all  our  difference,  yet 
they  allow  an  equivalency  to  our  presbytery  and  councils  and  ex- 
communication of  Churches,  which  is  consociation  with  Churches 
and  non-communion  with  Churches.  Is  it  not  a  pity  we  should 
break  for  such  a  little  knot  in  a  golden  thread  ?  Only  this  I  must 
say,  they  tell  us  how  disengaged  and  disinterested  they  were  in 
their  holy  pursuit  after  a  form,  and  had  no  state  or  kingdom  in  their 
eyes,  and  that  may  be  the  reason  (with  reverence  to  their  cause  and 
persons)  why  they  straiten  the  form  to  single  congregntions  and 
make  it  of  no  more  latitude,  and  so  have  happened  their  differences 
from  us — having  rather  the  model  of  their  private  churches  in 
their  thoughts  to  provide  them  a  more  public."     (E,  8l,  No.  20.) 


Debates  on   Church-Government.     201 

and  the  debates  in  the  Assembly  not  only  became 
keen,   but    embittered.     Candor    and   charity    fell 
sadly  into  abeyance  on  both  sides,  and  things  went 
from  bad  to  worse  till  the  attack  culminated  in  that 
disgraceful  outbreak  to  which  in  my  last  I  referred, 
when  Nye  in  the  presence  of  his  parliamentary 
friends,  arraigned  that  Presbyterian  system,  about 
which  he  had  previously  said  such  kindly  things, 
as  prejudicial  to  the  civil  state,  and  maintained  that 
the  system  of  gathering  into  one  the  churches  of 
an  entire  kingdom  tended  to  encroach  on  the  civil 
domain,  and   was   thrice    over  pernicious   to  the 
State.^     This  meant  seemingly  that  he  was  pre- 
pared to  make  common  cause  with  the  Erastians, 
and  rather  than  allow  the  majority  to  have  the 
orderly  Presbyterian  establishment  they  desired, 
would  unite  with  these  in  cramping  the  independ- 
ence of  the  Church,  and  in  discrediting  every  form 
of  church-government  but  his  own.     Had  he  been 
professedly  a  voluntary,  one  could  to  some  extent 
have  understood  him,  but  beside  the  fact  of  his 
holding  a  parish  in  a  national  Church  (which  drew 
into  one   the  churches  of  the  kingdom),  in  the 
hope  of  latitude  to  be  allowed  him  under  the  new 
government,  he  ought  to  have  remembered  that 
in  this  respect  the  Presbyterians  were  but  claiming 
what  almost  all  the  reformed  Churches  claimed, 
and  that  the  dishonor  he  cast  on  the  Scotch  ex- 

1  See  Appendix,  note  H,  for  Rutherfurd  and  Gillespie's  view. 


202     Debates  on   Church-Govejnmient. 

tended  to  all  the  rest.  The  excitement  and  ill- 
feeling  occasioned  by  this  unfair  attack,  on  the 
system  the  majority  favored,  was  never  thoroughly 
got  over  on  either  side ;  nor  was  confidence  ever 
again  fully  restored  between  them,  though  Nye  for 
a  time  exerted  himself  to  be  unusually  complai- 
sant to  the  Scotch.  They  had  trusted  him  once,  and 
in  reliance  on  the  fair  professions  he  made  in  the 
day  of  his  country's  sore  distress,  they  had  haz- 
arded their  earthly  all  in  a  struggle  in  which  they 
were  only  indirectly  concerned,  and  in  which 
Henderson  for  a  time  had  doubted  whether  they 
ought  to  take  an  active  part  at  all ;  and  to  be  told 
so  bluntly  to  their  face  that  their  beloved  presby- 
tery was  thrice  over  pernicious  to  the  civil  state, 
by  one  who  had  so  lately  been  a  suppliant  to 
their  Assembly  as  well  as  to  their  Parliament  for 
aid,  and  had  spoken  so  kindly  of  their  order,  was 
an  act  which  fully  warranted  them  to  be  on  their 
guard  in  all  their  dealings  with  him  thereafter. 

The  debates  were  resumed  again  and  again. 
The  nature  of  the  Church  and  the  rights  of  con- 
gregations were  insisted  on  by  one  side,  the  power 
of  presbyteries  in  government  and  ordination,  and 
the  right  of  appeals  to  even  higher  courts,  and  the 
examples  of  such  furnished  under  the  Jewish  as 
well  as  under  the  Christian  dispensation,  by  the 
other,  till  every  possible  argument  had  been  ad- 
duced, and  both  sides  were  thoroughly  exhausted. 


Debates  on   Chureh-Goveni))ient.      203 

Reasons  of  dissent  from  the  decision  of  some  of 
the  questions  in  dispute  were  given  in,  and  an- 
swers to  the  reasons  were  drawn  up.  "  Truly," 
says  BailHe,  "  if  the  cause  were  good,  the  men  have 
plenty  of  learning,  wit,  eloquence,  and  above  all 
boldness  and  stiffness  to  make  it  out ;  but  when 
they  had  wearied  themselves  and  over-wearied  us 
all,  we  found  the  most  they  had  to  say  against  the 
presbytery  was  but  curious  idle  niceties,  yea  that 
all  they  could  bring  was  no  ways  concluding. 
Every  one  of  their  arguments,  when  it  had  been 
pressed  to  the  full,  in  one  whole  session  and  some- 
times in  two  or  three,  was  voiced  and  found  to 
be  light  unanimously  by  all  but  themselves."  ^  Dr. 
Stoughton's  commentary  on  this  account  of  Baillie 
hardly  shows  his  usual  candor  : — "  The  reasoning 
of  the  Independents,"  he  says, "  would  of  course  be 
found  wanting  when  weighed  in  the  Presbyterian 
balance,  and  the  majority  of  the  Assembly  would 
naturally  consider  their  own  votes  an  ample  refu- 
tation of  their  adversaries'  arguments."  ^  But  the 
whole  Assembly  was  not,  as  he  admits  in  other 
places,  wedded  to  the  Presbyterian  system.  A 
number  of  the  members  had  leanings  to  another, 
and  were  only  brought  to  acquiesce  in  the  Pres- 
byterian as  allowable,  in  consequence  of  these 
debates,  and  the  fact  that  all  pronounced  against 

1  Letters,  etc.,  vol.  ii.  p.  145. 

2  Chtirch  of  Civil  Wars,  vol.  i.  p.  419. 


204     Debates  on   C/iiireh-GoveruinenL 

the  Independents  was  a  thing  of  more  importance 
than  he  grants,  especially  when  we  couple  it  with 
the  other  fact  that  these  had  said  in  their  Apolo- 
getical  Narration  that  they  had  with  deliberation 
selected  this  theatre  whereon  to  plead  their  cause, 
as  one  they  might  count  on  to  be  fair  and  just, 
where  much  of  the  piety,  wisdom,  and  learning 
of  the  two  kingdoms  are  met  in  one,  honored  and 
assisted  with  the  presence  of  the  worthies  of  both 
Houses/  But  this  was  not  all.  The  mass  of  the 
members  of  Parliament,  who  heard  the  debates, 
soon  began  to  give  practical  if  dilatory  and  partial 
evidence,  that  they  knew  if  victory  was  to  be  de- 
cided by  votes  either  of  the  Assembly  or  of  their 
own  supporters,  it  would  not  declare  for  the  Inde- 
pendents. Many  endeavored  to  get  a  fair  accom- 
modation for  them  within,  others  to  secure  them 
a  toleration  outside  the  national  Church  ;  but  few 
indeed  would  have  ventured  to  pronounce  that 
they  had  beaten  their  opponents  in  argument,  or 
won  over  any  considerable  part  of  the  Puritan 
laity,  and  that  the  national  Church,  to  give  general 
satisfaction  to  these,  must  be  reconstituted  after 
their  model.  On  the  contrary,  votes  began  to  pass 
the  Houses  which  showed  clearly  that  the  national 
Church  was  to  be  Presbyterian  not  Congregational 
in  its  polity,  and  that  the  Churches  of  the  kingdom 
were  to  be  gathered  into   one  whole,  though  to 

^  Pp.  27,  etc. 


Committee  on  Accommodation.       205 

guard  against  consequences  Nye  had  insinuated, 
its  independence  was  to  be  cramped  or  com- 
promised by  appeals  being  allowed  from  its 
highest  courts  to  Parliament,  It  was  at  this 
juncture,  and  with  Dr.  Hetherington  ^  I  incline  to 
think,  that  possibly  it  was  to  put  off  this  work  of 
reconstruction,  till  he  and  his  party  were  stronger 
and  able  to  overbear  those  they  could  not  outvote, 
that  Cromwell  obtained  an  order  from  the  House 
of  Commons  to  refer  it  to  the  Committee  of  both 
kingdoms,  **  to  consider  the  differences  of  the  mem- 
bers of  Assembly  in  regard  to  church-govern- 
ment, and  to  endeavor  an  union  between  them  if 
possible,  and  otherwise  to  consider  how  far  tender 
consciences,  that  cannot  in  all  things  come  up  to 
the  rule  to  be  established,  may  be  borne  with  ac- 
cording to  the  Word."  "  They  knew,"  says 
Baillie,^  "  when  we  had  debated  and  had  come  to 
voicing,  they  could  carry  all  by  plurality  in  the 
Committee ;  and  though  they  should  not,  yet 
they  were  confident,  when  the  report  came  to  the 
House  of  Commons,  to  get  all  they  desired  there 
passed.  So,  without  the  Assembly,  they  purposed 
immediately  from  this  Committee  to  get  a  tolera- 
tion of  Independency  concluded  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  long  before  anything  should  be  gotten 
so   much   as   reported  from  the  Assembly  anent 

^  History  of  Westminster  Assembly,  p.  209. 
2  Letters  and  Journals,  vol,  ii.  p.  237. 


2o6        Committee  on  Accommodation. 

presbyteries.  Here  it  was  that  God  helped  us  by 
[/.  c.  beyond]  our  expectation.  Mr.  Rouse,  Mr. 
Tate,  and  Mr.  Prideaux  among  the  ablest  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  opposed  them  to  their  face. 
My  Lord  Chancellor,^  with  a  spate  of  divine  elo- 
quence, Warriston  with  the  sharp  points  of  mani- 
fold arguments,  Maitland,  Mr.  Henderson,  Mr. 
Gillespie,  and  all  made  their  designs  to  appear  so 
clearly  that  many  did  dislike  them ;  yet  Harry 
Vane  went  on  violently." 

Notwithstanding  this  unpromising  commence- 
ment many  conferences  took  place  between  the 
leaders  of  both  sides  of  the  Assembly  under  the 
direction  of  this  Conmiittee,  and  these  at  a  later 
period  were  renewed,  and  various  written  papers 
passed  between  them  which  were  ultimately  pub- 
lished, first  under  the  title  of  "The  Reasons  pre- 
sented by  the  Dissenting  brethren  against  certain 
Propositions  concerning  Church  Government,  to- 
gether with  the  Answers  of  the  Assembly  of 
Divines  to  these  Reasons  of  Dissent,"  etc. ;  and 
again  under  the  title,  '*  The  Grand  Debate  con- 
cerning Presbytery  and  Independency,  by  the 
Assembly  of  Divines  convened  at  Westminster  by 
authority  of  Parliament."  Full  particulars  as  to 
the  debates  on  Church-Government  and  Ordina- 
tion, both  in  the  Assembly  and  before  the  Com- 
mittee   on    Accommodation,    are    given    by    Dr. 

^  /.  e.,  Lord  Loudon. 


Committee  on  Accommodation.       207 

Hetherington  in  his  history,  and  I  the  more 
readily  refer  you  to  his  pages  for  details,  as  that 
is  undoubtedly  the  most  valuable  part  of  his  book. 
It  is  sad  to  think  that  men  should  have  come  so 
near  as  these  men  did,  in  matters  of  doctrine  and 
worship  and  so  far  in  church-order  too,  and  yet 
should  not  have  been  able  amicably  to  arrange 
the  remaining  points  of  difference  between  them. 
But  the  more  I  have  studied  the  documents,  the 
less  inclined  do  I  feel  to  throw  the  whole  blame, 
or  even  the  larger  share  of  it,  on  the  Presbyterians, 
while  admitting  that  there  were  faults  on  their 
side  as  well  as  on  the  other  infirmities  of  temper, 
failure  in  candor  and  thorough  straightforward- 
ness, and  at  times  also  too  stiff  and  narrow  a  view 
of  the  whole  case,  and  that  the  Scottish  represen- 
tatives were  not  more  perfect  than  their  neighbors. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind, 
that  infirmities  of  temper  and  uncandid  dealing 
were  not  monopolized  by  them.  These  failings 
were  shown,  at  any  rate,  to  an  equal  extent  b}' 
their  opponents,  and  they  were  but  a  small  minor- 
ity of  the  nation, — probably  not  as  yet  in  larger 
proportion  among  the  ministry  outside,  than  the\- 
were  in  the  Assembly  itself  It  was  something 
akin  to  presumption  (and  only  the  more  offensive 
presumption — obstruction  we  should  call  it  nowa- 
days— if  ostentatiously  backed  by  their  friends  in 
the  army)  to    demand   that  the  national    Church 


2o8  opinions  on   Toleration. 

should  either  be  constituted  according  to  the  model 
they  advocated,  or  should  get  no  constitution  at 
all  till  legal  security  outside  of  it  were  first  assured 
to  them.  Thus  far  certainly  the  Presbyterians  had 
reason  on  their  side  when  they  said :  Settle  first 
what  the  rule  is  to  be  ;  make  the  national  Church 
as  comprehensive  as  you  can,  preserving  its  Prot- 
estant character ;  but  do  this  without  more  delay, 
and  so  give  reasonable  satisfaction  to  those  who 
are  likely  to  constitute  it,  before  you  proceed  to 
make  arrangements  for  a  small  minority  who  are 
not  likely  to  enter  it,  and  who  in  fact  tell  you  they 
are  not  likely  to  do  so,  unless  you  yield  to  them 
in  other  matters  than  those  of  the  constitution  of 
presbyteries  and  the  authority  of  synods.  Neither 
were  they  altogether  without  reason,  accord- 
ing to  the  generally  received  principles  of  their 
day,  when,  while  promising  to  forbear  with 
brethren  so  orthodox  in  doctrine  and  consist- 
ent in  life, — even  if  they  elected  to  remain  outside 
the  Church, — they  refused  to  do  this  by  open- 
ing a  door  for  the  toleration  of  all  sects  and 
opinions,  even  of  those  who,  if  they  got  the  upper 
hand  again,  would  tolerate  none  but  themselves. 
The  orthodox  Independents  as  yet  hardly  went 
that  length,  and  even  Cromwell  in  the  height  of  his 
power  did  not  venture  practically  to  concede  that.' 

^  "  We  are  degenerated  into  that  old,  dark,  and  Egyptian  spirit 
that  we  seemed  to  have  escaped,  ...  in  the  putting  a  stop  unto 


opinions  on   Tola-ation.  209 

Dr.  Owen  enumerated  no  fewer  than  sixteen  funda- 
mentals which  all  who  were  to  be  tolerated  should 
hold.  The  amount  of  indulgence  the  majority 
were  prepared  to  grant  them  within  the  Church  was 
such  as  their  own  predecessors  would  have  ac- 
cepted with  gratitude  at  the  hands  of  the  bishops. 
They  were  to  be  permitted  to  hold  lectureships 
and  even  parishes  without  being  subject  to  the 
classes,  provided  they  did  not  attempt  to  gather 
congregations  from  other  parishes.  Their  adhe- 
rents in  other  parishes,  if  they  ordinarily  attended 
their  parish  churches,  were  not  to  be  pressed  to 
communicate  there,  and  would  no  doubt  have 
been  winked  at  in  communicating  now  and  then 
elsewhere.  But  their  claim  to  be  allowed  to  hold 
charges  in  the  national  Church,  and  yet  to  gather 
congregations  out  of  other  parishes  and  congre- 
gations within  its  bounds,  was  one  that  could  not 
possibly  be  conceded,  and  to  that  they  tenaciously 
adhered.  Neither  could  their  claim  be  granted, 
to  exclude  from  sealing  ordinances  without  appeal, 
all  in  their  parishes  who,  however  credible  their 

any  further  light  and  further  reformation  above  what  their  carnal 
principles  would  bear,  and  in  compliance  with  and  clasping  about 
the  powers  of  the  world  for  their  defense  therein,  and  for  the  put- 
ting a  check  upon  all  further  truth  and  reformation,  than  that  which 
consisted  with  the"  safety  of  their  place,  order,  and  nation,  and 
suchlike  worldly  interests  ;  which  course,  as  it  was  the  ruin  of  them 
that  are  already  fallen,  so  will  it  prove  to  this  generation  if  they 
repent  not  and  do  their  first  works." — A  lamenting  7vord,  s/iowing 
that  there  is  a  desertion  come  upon  us,  etc.  London,  1 65 7. 
U 


210  Opinions  on   Toleration. 

profession  might  be,  or  blameless  their  life,  did 
not  exhibit  such  evidence  of  a  work  of  grace  as 
to  satisfy  the  congregation  that  they  were  truly 
regenerate  persons.  In  this  they  had  the  Parlia- 
ment more  decidedly  hostile  to  them  than  even 
the  Assembly,  and  they  were  the  first  to  feel  the 
effects  of  that  Erastian  interference  which  they 
had  themselves  rather  encouraged.  It  was  on 
this  rock  the  scheme  of  accommodation  was 
really  and  finally  wrecked,  according  to  their  own 
confession,  "as  the  House  had  not  thought  meet 
as  yet  to  give  power  by  a  law  to  purge  the  congre- 
gations, and  as  the  rule  for  purging  proposed  by 
the  Assembly  was  not  only  short  but  exclusive  of 
what  they  thought  was  required  in  church  mem- 
bers." Gillespie,  Henderson,  Reynolds,  and  many 
others,  would  have  yielded  much  to  retain  them 
within  the  reconstituted  church,  but  this  they  could 
hardly  yield,  without  turning  their  backs  on  the 
National  Reformed  churches  generally,  and  be- 
coming in  fact  Independents  themselves. 

I  have  said  that  the  Independents  did  not  ven- 
ture to  plead  for  a  general  or  unlimited  toleration 
of  sects  in  the  Assembly.  So  far  from  it  that, 
while  they  generally  objected  to  the  expediency  of 
inserting  in  the  Confession  of  Faith  the  strong 
statement  in  chap,  xx.,  that  for  publishing  of  such 
opinions,  or  maintaining  of  such  practices  as  are 
contrary  to  the  light  of  nature   and  the   known 


opinions  on   Toleration,  2 1 1 

principles  of  Christianity,  whether  concerning  faith, 
worship,  or  conversation,  etc.,  heretics  may  be 
proceeded  against,  not  only  by  the  censures  of  the 
Church,  but  by  the  power  of  the  civil  magistrate, 
only  one  of  them  ventured  to  record  his  dissent 
against  the  truth  of  the  proposition.'  The  leading 
Independent  ministers  were  not  so  greatly  in 
advance  of  the  Presbyterians  in  regard  to  tolera- 
tion as  is  generally  supposed,  and  their  brethren 
in  New  England  even  lagged  behind  many  of  the 
Presbyterians  in  old  England.  It  was  only  by 
circumstances  that  they  were  led  latterly  to  make 
common  cause  with  the  sectaries.  The  earlier 
utterances  even  of  such  a  man  as  Owen,  already 
referred  to,  are  not  much  in  advance  of  the  follow- 
ing earlier  ones  of  Gillespie :  ^  '*  When  I  speak 
against  liberty  of  conscience,  it  is  far  from  my 
meaning  to  advise  any  rigorous  or  violent  course 
against  such  as,  being  sound  in  the  faith,  holy  in 
life,  and  not  of  a  turbulent  or  factious  carriage,  do 
differ  in  smaller  matters  from  the  common  rule. 
'  Let  that  day  be  darkness,  let  not  God  regard  it 
from  above,  neither  let  the  light  shine  upon  it,'  in 
which  it  shall  be  said  that  the  children  of  God  in 


^  Minutes  of  the  Assembly,  p.  297. 

2  Sermon  before  House  of  Commons,  To  the  Assembly  he  said, 
*'  I  wish  that  instead  of  toleration  there  may  be  a  mutual  endeavor 
for  a  happy  accommodation  .  ,  .  There  is  a  certain  measure  of 
forbearance,  l)ut  it  is  not  so  seasonable  now  to  be  talking  of  for- 
bearance but  of  mutual  endeavors  for  accommodation." 


212  Opinions  on   Toleration. 

Britain  are  enemies  and  persecutors  of  each  other." 
They  are  still  less  in  advance  of  those  expressed 
by  the  ministers  of  Essex  in  their  Testimony  to  the 
truth  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  which,  while  soliciting  the 
ratification  of  the  Confession  of  Faith  and  the 
establishment  of  church-government  as  set  forth 
by  the  Assembly,  and  mourning  that  under  pretext 
of  liberty  of  conscience,  Popery,  Arminianism,  So- 
cinianism,  and  various  other  heresies  are  tolerated, 
they  yet  state  that  they  "judge  it  to  be  most  agree- 
able to  Christianity  that  tender  consciences  of  dis- 
senting brethren  be  tenderly  dealt  withal."  ^  I  have 
shown  you  in  a  former  lecture  that  some  of  the  ear- 
lier Puritans  had  very  sound  ideas  on  this  subject 
of  toleration.^  The  plea  for  it  published  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  17th  century,  even  if  it  be  not,  as  it 
professes,  the  production  of  a  Puritan,  would  not 
have  come  out  in  the  name  of  one,  if  there  had 
been  none  among  them  favorable  to  the  principle 
of  toleration  at  that  date.  Nay,  even  in  those  times 
of  excitement  and  commotion,  when,  from  their 
dread  of  the  wild  opinions  that  came  to  light  on 
the  removal  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  restraints, 
several  were  giving  utterance  to  very  rash  and 
narrow  sentiments,  there  were  others  among  them, 
as  well  as  among  the  Independents,  who  were 
working  their  way  to  sounder  views.  Take  for 
instance  the  following  from  the  Vmdication  of  the 

1  E.  438,  No.  4,  p.  3.  '^  See  p.  16. 


The   Question  of  Toleration.        213 

Prcsbytcrial  Government  and  Ministry  issued  by 
the  rrovincial  Assembly  of  London  in  1649:— 

"  We  abhor  an  over  rigid  urging  of  uniformity  in  circum- 
stantial things,  and  are  far  from  the  cruelty  of  that  giant 
who  laid  upon  abed  all  he  took,  and  those  who  were  too  long 
he  cut  them  even  with  his  bed.  and  such  as  were  too  short  he 
stretched  out  to  the  length  of  it.     God  hath   not  made  all 
men  of  a  length  nor  height.  Men's  parts,  gifts,  graces,  differ ; 
and  if  there  should  be  no  forbearance  in  matters  of  inferior 
alloy,  all  the  world  would  be  perpetually  quarreling.     If  you 
would    fully  know  our  judgments  herein  we  will  present 
them  in  these  two  propositions  :   i.  That  it  is  the  duty  of  all 
Christians  to  study  to  enjoy  the  ordinances  of  Christ  in 
unity  and  uniformity,  as  far  as  it  is  possible."     Then,  after 
showing  that  Scripture  calls  for  such  unity  as  well  as  for 
purity,  and  that  God  had  promised  it  and  Christ  had  prayed 
for  it,  they  proceed  to  argue  that  it  was  certainly  a  duty 
incumbent  on  all  Christians  to  labor  after  it.     2.  "  That  it 
is  their  duty  to  hold  communion  together  as  one  church  in 
what  they  agree,  and  in  this  way  of  union  mutually  to  tolerate 
and  bearwith  one  another  in  lesser  differences,"  according  to 
the  golden  rule  of  the  Aposde  set  forth  in  Phil.  iii.  15,  16. 
Then,  after  stating  that  this  was  the  practice  of  the  primiUve 
Christians,  they  proceed  t  "  We  beseech  you  therefore,  breth- 
ren, that  you  would  endeavor  to  keep  the  unity  of  the  spirit 
in  the  bond  of  peace,  for  there  is  one  body  and  one  Spirit, 
even  as  ye  are  called  in  one  hope  of  your  calling,  one  Lord, 
one  faith,  one  baptism.   .  .  For  our  parts  we  do  here  mani- 
fest our  willingness  (as  we  have  already  said)  to  accommo- 
date with  you,  according  to  the  word,  in  a  way  of  union,  and 
(such  of  us  as  are  ministers)  to  preach  up  and  to  practice  a 
viutual  forbearance  and  toleration,  in  all  things  that  may 
consist  with  the  fundamentals  of  religion,  with  the  power 
of  godliness,  and  with  that  peace  which  Christ  hath  estab- 
lished in  his  church.     But  to  make  ruptures  in  the  body  of 
Christ  and  to  divide  church  from  church,  and  to  set  up  church 
against  church,  and  to  gather  churches  out  of  true  churches, 
and  because  we  differ  in  some  things  to  hold  church  com- 
munion in  nothing,  this  we  think  hath  no  warrant  out  of  the 


214        The  Question  of  Toleration, 

word  of  God,  and  will  introduce  all  manner  of  confusion  in 
churches  and  families,  and  not  only  disturb  but  in  a  little 
time  destroy  the  power  of  godliness,  purity  of  religion,  and 
peace  of  Christians,  and  set  open  a  wide  gap  to  bring  in 
Atheism,  Popery,  heresy,  and  all  manner  of  wickedness." 
— Pp.  119-121. 

Or  we  may  take  the  views  of  Dr.  Reynolds,  as  set 
out  at  length  in  his  two  sermons  preached  before  the 
Parliament  after  Cromwell's  death,  when  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  maybe  said  to  have  got  a  new  lease 
of  power  and  been  in  more  hopeful  case  than  ever 
before.  In  the  case  of  the  unavoidable  differences 
of  good  men,  "  there  ought  to  be  mutual  charity, 
meekness,  moderation,  tolerance,  humanity  used, 
not  to  judge,  despise,  reject,  insult  over  one  another, 
not  to  deal  with  our  weaker  brethren  ...  as  with 
aliens,  but  as  with  brethren."  In  order  to  this,  he 
says  we  "  must  distinguish  of  opinions,"  some  be- 
ing fundamental,  relating  to  those  necessary  doc- 
trines on  which  the  House  of  God  is  built,  the  errors 
contrary  whereunto  are  pernicious.  Others  are  only 
in  the  superstructure — not  points  of  faith  but  ques- 
tions of  the  schools.  Such,  in  the  Apostle's  time, 
were  the  disputes  touching  meats  and  drinks  and 
days;  and  such  in  our  days  are  those  "  touching 
forms  of  discipline  and  government  in  the  Church 
wherein  men  may  abound  in  their  own  sense  with 
meekness  and  submission  to  the  spirits  of  the  Pro- 
phets." "  When  the  foundation  and  necessary  doc- 
trines of  law  and  gospel,  of  faith  and  worship  and 


The   Question  of  Toleration.        215 

obedience  are  safe  .  .  .  there,  in  differences  of  an  in- 
ferior nature  which  do  not  touch  the  essentials  ...  of 
religion,  imitual  tolerance,  meekness  and  tenderness, 
is  to  be  used."  In  regard  to  the  duty  of  the  magis- 
trate he  says :  **  If  undue  passions  and  exaspera- 
tions happen,  the  Christian  magistrate  may  inter- 
pose by  his  authority  to  forbid  and  moderate  them. 
He  may  .  .  .  call  colloquies  wherein  there  may  be 
a  fraternal  and  amicable  debate  and  composure  of 
them.  And  if  after  all  this,  differences  be  not  per- 
fectly healed, .  .  .  brethren  must  mutually  bear  with 
one  another  and  pray  for  one  another,  and  love  one 
another;  whereunto  they  have  already  attained  they 
must  walk  by  the  same  rule  and  mind  the  same 
things,  and  wherein  they  yet  differ,  wait  humbly 
upon  God  to  reveal  his  will  unto  them ;  where  one 
and  the  same  straight  road  to  heaven  is  kept,  a  small 
difference  of  paths  does  not  hinder  travelers  from  com- 
ing to  the  same  inn  at  nights  ^  "  It  admits  of  being 
shown,"  says  Dr.  M'Crie  in  his  Annals  of  English 
Presbytery  f  "  that  even  the  h\^pothetical  intolerance 
of  some  of  our  Presbyterian  fathers  differed  essen- 
tially from  Romish  and  Prelatic  tyranny.  ...  In 
point  of  fact  it  never  led  them  to  persecute,  it  never 
applied  the  rack  to  the  flesh,  or  slaked  its  vengeance 
in  blood  or  the  maiming  of  the  body  ...  If  there 
is  one  point  in  which  the  English  Presbyterians 
may  be  said  to  have  failed,  it  was  in  their  extreme 

1  Reynolds'  Works,  pp.  937,  948.  ^  pp    j^q^  j^j^ 


2i6        The  Question  of  Toleration. 

reluctance  to  impose  subscription  to  their  creed, 
even  as  a  term  of  ministerial  communion.  So 
sorely  had  they  smarted  from  oaths  and  subscrip- 
tions, under  the  regime  of  Laud  and  his  high  church 
predecessors,  that  they  had  conceived  a  rooted 
aversion  to  all  sorts  of  '  impositions',  name  and 
thing."  Even  Baillie,  who  was  more  narrow  than 
many  of  the  English,  in  his  Dissuasive  from  the 
Errors  of  the  Time,  thus  endeavors  carefully  to 
distinguish  between  what  he  desired  and  the  Court 
of  High  Commission  had  practiced  :  "  But  if  once 
the  government  of  Christ  (meaning  of  course 
presbytery)  were  set  up  among  us  we  know  not 
what  would  impede  it,  by  the  siuord  of  God  alone 
zvithout  aiiy  secular  viole^iee,  to  banish  out  of  the 
land  those  spirits  of  error,  in  all  meekness,  humility, 
and  love,  by  the  force  of  truth  convincing  and 
satisfying  the  minds  of  the  seduced.  Episcopal 
courts  were  never  fitted  for  the  reclaiming  of 
minds.  Their  prisons,  their  fines,  their  pillories, 
their  nose-slitting,  ear-croppings,  and  cheek-burn- 
ings did  but  hold  down  the  flame  to  break  out  in 
season  with  the  greater  rage.  But  the  reformed 
presbytery  doth  proceed  in  a  spiritual  method  emi- 
nently fitted  for  the  gaining  of  hearts  ;  they  go  on 
with  the  offending  party  with  all  respect :  they  deal 
with  him  in  all  gentleness  from  weeks  to  months, 
from  months  sometimes  to  years,  before  they  come 
near  to  any  censure."    No  doubt  it  was  by  means 


The   Question  of  Toleration.         2 1 7 

of  preaching  and  teaching,  by  church  disciphne 
and  censures,  that  the  best  of  them  intended  and 
hoped  to  keep  the  Enghsh  as  well  as  the  Scottish 
nation  united  in  one  great  national  Church,  but 
whether  they  would  have  succeeded  in  doing  so 
by  gentle  suasion — the  spiritual  method  above  re- 
ferred to — had  they  been  allowed  untrammeled  to 
carry  out  their  purpose,  or  whether,  if  they  had 
failed,  the  more  narrow-minded  would  have  re- 
frained from  rash  use  of  church  censure  or  even 
from  invoking  the  aid  of  the  civil  magistrate  to 
supplement  their  censures  with  his  pains  and  pen- 
alties, he  would  be  a  bold  man  who  would  pro- 
nounce too  confidently.  In  Cromwell's  own  par- 
liaments, the  majority  at  times  were  found  ready 
to  go  further  in  that  direction  than  the  Protector 
was  disposed  to  allow.  And  in  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment, which  he  first  "  purged  "  and  then  dismissed, 
as  well  as  in  the  Assembly,  there  were  many  "  who 
were  frightened  out  of  calm  thought  and  wise  con- 
sideration by  the  monstrous  apparitions  which 
were  rising  on  all  sides,  and  threatening  their 
newly  established  church,"  and  who  "acted  as  if 
they  had  been  stricken  with  panic  in  a  great  emer- 
gency, when  their  most  sacred  interests  were  ex- 
posed to  imminent  hazards  of  which  they  had 
little  knowledge  and  no  experience."  ^  The  letters 
of  Baillie  and  the  Minutes  of  the  Commission  of 

1  Halley,  as  quoted  by  M'Crie  (p.  312).     See  also  Note  I. 


2i8         The   Question  of  Toleration. 

the  Scottish  General  Assembly  from  1646  to  1 650 
seem  to  show  that  the  case  was  not  very  different 
in  Scotland,  and  that  Baillie  himself  and  still  more 
his  chief  correspondent  in  Holland  grieved  over 
the  haste  and  rigor  of  more  narrow-minded 
brethren. 


LECTURE    VII. 

THE    DIRECTORY    FOR    THE    RUULIC    WORSHIP    OF    GOD. 

In  my  last  Lecture  I  gave  you  an  account  of 
the  proceedings  of  the  Westminster  Assembly 
while  it  was  engaged  in  debating  the  constitution 
of  the  Church,  the  various  orders  of  officers  who 
were  to  bear  rule  in  it,  and  the  gradation  of  courts 
through  which  that  rule  was  to  be  exercised,  from 
the  lesser  presbytery  or  session  of  an  individual 
congregation,  up  through  the  greater  presbytery 
or  classis  of  associated  neighboring  churches,  and 
the  provincial  synod  or  meeting  of  the  represen- 
tatives of  neighboring  classes,  to  the  national 
Synod  or  Assembly  of  the  representatives  of  all 
the  presbyteries  or  synods  of  the  kingdom  by 
w^hose  direction  they  proposed  that  in  matters 
ecclesiastical  all  should  be  guided  and  controlled. 
In  my  lecture  to-day  I  am  to  give  you  a  succinct 
account  of  the  Directory  for  Public  Worship  which 
was  elaborated  while  these  debates  were  going  on, 
and  which  was  the  first  of  the  formularies  they 
prepared  and  completed  in  terms  of  their  Solemn 
League  and  Covenant.  In  doing  this  I  may  have 
to   some  extent  to   recapitulate   what  at  various 

219 


2  20  TJic  Directory  for  the 

times  I  have  already  written  on  these  subjects. 
Having  had  to  discuss  them  more  than  once 
already  I  should  deal  as  unfairly  by  you  as  by 
myself  if  I  did  not  at  times  content  myself  with 
revising  or  expanding  the  materials  I  had  previ- 
ously collected. 

The  order  to  prepare  such  a  Directory  was  given 
to  the  Assembly  by  the  two  Houses  on  the  I2th 
Oct.  1643,  along  with  the  order  to  "confer  and 
treat  of  such  a  discipline  and  government  as  may 
be  most  agreeable  to  God's  holy  word,"  etc.  Both 
orders  were  proceeded  in  simultaneously,  or  taken 
up  alternately  at  various  periods  during  the  years 
1643  and  1644.  The  divines,  however,  were  far 
more  at  one  with  respect  to  the  worship  than  with 
respect  to  the  government  of  the  Church.  What- 
ever may  have  been  their  theoretical  views  of  the 
lawfulness  of  strictly  imposed  forms  or  of  liturgies 
leaving  room  for  free  prayer,  all  were  prepared,  in 
the  interests  of  peace  and  Christian  union,  "  to  lay 
aside  the  former  liturgy,"  with  the  many  burden- 
some rites  and  ceremonies  that  had  previously 
been  imposed,  and  in  place  of  a  "  formed  "  liturgy 
to  content  themselves  with  a  simple  Directory  as 
a  guide  and  help  to  the  minister  in  the  various 
parts  of  the  public  worship.  And  so,  though  there 
were  occasionally  keen  debates  about  certain  mat- 
ters of  detail,  as  about  the  profession  of  faith  to  be 
made  by  a  parent  when  presenting  his  child  for 


Picbiic  Worship  of  God.  221 

baptism,  the  qualifications  to  be  required  of  com- 
municants, and  the  exact  position  to  be  taken  by 
them  at  or  about  the  table  in  the  act  of  communi- 
cating, the  work  of  preparing  this  Directory  went 
on  more  rapidly  and  far  more  smoothly  than  that 
of  adjusting  the  "  Propositions  concerning  Church 
Government  and  Ordination,"  and  elaborating  the 
practical  Directory  for  church-government  and 
ordination  of  ministers. 

It  was  on  the  17th  October — the  day  after  that 
solemn  fast  to  which  I  have  previously  referred, — 
when  they  made  their  first  arrangements  about  the 
order  in  which  questions  of  government  were  to  be 
discussed,  that,  according  to  Neal,^  they  also  em- 
powered a  committee  to  make  arrangements  for 
drawing  up  a  Directory  for  worship.  This  was 
probably  the  Grand  Committee  of  divines  and 
members  of  the  Houses  which  was  intrusted  with 
the  charge  of  all  matters  relating  to  the  covenanted 
uniformity  between  the  kingdoms.  At  a  meeting 
of  that  committee  ^  held  apparently  on  i6th  Dec. 
1643,  a  sub-committee  of  five  (yet  without  exclud- 
ing any  member  of  committee  who  chose  to  attend) 
was  appointed  to  meet  with  the  Scottish  delegates 
to  prepare  the  Directory  and  submit  it  to  a  com- 
mittee, and  through  them  to  the  Assembly.  This 
sub-committee  consisted  of  Mr.  Marshall,  who  was 
chairman,  and  Messrs.  Palmer,  Goodwin,  Young, 

^  Vol.  iii.  p.  141.  '^  r>aillie's  Letters,  vol.  ii.  p.  1 17. 


2  2  2  The  Directory  for  the 

and  Herle,  with  the  Scottish  commissioners.  To 
the  latter  was  assigned  the  duty  of  drafting  what 
related  to  public  prayer  and  the  administration  of 
the  sacraments,  and  to  Mr.  Young  that  of  drawing 
up  what  related  to  the  reading  of  the  Scriptures. 
It  was  devolved  on  the  chairman  to  prepare  a 
paper  on  the  preaching  of  the  word,  and  on  Mr. 
Palmer  to  prepare  one  on  catechising.  Their  first 
meetings,  according  to  Baillie,^  were  not  very  prom- 
ising. Goodwin,  who  does  not  seem  to  have  had 
any  part  specially  assigned  to  him,  was  disposed  to 
make  trouble,  and  the  papers  prepared  by  Mar- 
shall and  Palmer  were  not  quite  to  the  mind  of  our 
critical  countrymen.  But  Goodwin  was  propitiated, 
the  papers  of  Marshall  and  Palmer  were  handed 
to  the  Scottish  Commissioners  for  revision,  and 
thereafter  matters  seem  to  have  made  more  rapid 
progress.  The  Committee  was  able  to  present  its 
first  report  to  the  Assembly  on  24th  May  1644. 
The  report,  according  to  Lightfoot,  was  a  large 
report  "  concerning  the  Lord's  day  and  prayer  and 
preaching,  which  held  the  Assembly  in  work  all 
the  next  week."  ^  From  time  to  time  the  remain- 
ing parts  of  the  Directory  were  brought  forward 
and  discussed,  especially  during  the  months  of 
June,  July,  and  November,  and  before  the  end  of 
the  year,  after  more  or  less  of  upward  of  seventy 
sessions   had  been   spent   on   it,  the   whole   of  it 

*  Letters,  yo\.  ii.  pp.  117,  118,  123.       '^  Juunial,  p.  277. 


Public  Worship  of  God.  223 

passed  the  Assembly.  The  first  portion  of  it,  em- 
bracing probably  the  preface,  the  ordinary  services 
for  the  Lord's  day,  and  the  order  for  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  sacraments,  was  presented  (by  Dr. 
Burgess  and  several  other  divines)  to  the  Houses 
of  Parliament  on  21st  November,  and  without  de- 
lay was  carefully  examined  and  revised  by  them. 
A  number  of  verbal  alterations  were  made  in  the 
draft,  chiefly  by  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
words  "  both  ordinary  and  extraordinary "  were 
struck  out  of  the  first  title,  also  the  words  "  as  in 
the  Church  of  Scotland  "  after  the  clause  as  to  com- 
municants sitting  '^  about  the  table  or  at  it."  The 
second  paragraph  in  the  section  of  the  celebra- 
tion of  the  Communion  bearing  on  the  qualifica- 
tion of  communicants  was  re-committed  to  a  large 
committee.  This  committee,  on  30th  November, 
reported  their  opinion  that  the  paragraph  given  in 
by  the  Assembly  should  be   left  out,^  and  that  in 

^  Journals  of  House  of  Commons,  vol.  iii.  p.  710.  It  is  not 
quite  clear  what  was  the  literal  form  of  the  paragraph  given  in 
by  the  Assembly,  I  have  not  found  it  in  the  manuscript  Minutes. 
Under  date  of  6th  June  it  is  given  by  Lightfoot  in  the  following 
shape :  "  None  to  be  admitted,  but  such  as,  being  baptized,  are  fouml 
upon  careful  examination  by  the  ministers,  before  the  officers,  to 
have  a  competent  measure  of  knowledge  of  the  grounds  of  religion, 
and  ability  to  examine  themselves,  and  who  profess  their  willingness 
and  promise  to  submit  themselves  to  all  the  ordinances  of  Christ  [or 
thus,  7vho  give  Just  grounds  in  the  Judgment  of  charity  to  conceive 
that  there  is  faith  and  regeneration  wroiight  in  the??i'].  The  igno- 
rant, scandalous,  etc.,  not  to  be  admitted,  nor  strangers  unless  they 
be  well  known,"     But  he  has  not  given  the  preceding  paragraph 


224  ^^^^  Directory  /o7^  the 

lieu  thereof  the  words  "  the  ignorant  and  the  scan- 
dalous are  not  fit  to  receive  the  sacrament  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  "  should  be  substituted.  This  report 
was  adopted  by  the  House.  On  a  subsequent  day 
part  of  the  section  on  the  visitation  of  the  sick 
was  proposed  to  be  left  out ;  but  whether  in  fact 
it  was  so  it  is  very  difficult  to  determine.  A  ^q\y 
verbal  alterations  were  suggested  by  the  House 
of  Lords  and  adopted  by  the  Commons.  The 
most  important  of  them  was,  that  to  the  direction 
in  the  section  of  singing  of  Psalms  "  that  every 
one  that  can  read  is  to  have  a  Psalm-book,"  their 
Lordships  proposed  to  add  the  words,  "  and  to 
have  a  Bible."  The  Commons,  improving  on  this 
suggestion,  proposed  to  transfer  the  words  to  the 
section  '*  of  the  public  reading  of  the  Scriptures," 
and  developed  them  into  a  paragraph  similar  in 
form  to  the  one  in  the  section  on  singing  of  Psalms. 
**  Besides  public  reading  of  the  Holy  Scriptures 
every  person  that  can  read  is  to  be  exhorted  to  read 

verbatim  as  passed  by  the  Assembly,  and  when,  under  date  of  1 2th 
November,  he  refers  again  to  this  one  he  does  not  insert  it  exactly 
in  the  same  form.  He  omits  the  clause  relating  to  baptism,  which 
is  also  wanting  in  the  corresponding  paragraph  of  Henderson's 
Governtnent  and  Order  of  the  Church,  which  pretty  closely  resem- 
bles the  above.  The  words  within  brackets  suggested  by  Henderson 
as  a  compromise  with  the  Independents  were  probably  left  out  at 
the  November  revision,  and  in  its  piactical  Directory  the  Assembly 
explicitly  asserted,  "  Although  the  truth  of  conversion  and  regen- 
eration be  necessary  to  every  worthy  communicant  for  his  own 
comfort  and  benefit,  yet  those  only  are  to  be  by  the  eldership 
excluded  .  .  .  who  are  found  by  them  ignorant  or  scandalous." 


Public  Worship  of  God.  225 

the  Scriptures  privately  (and  all  others  that  cannot 
read,  if  not  disabled  by  age  or  otherwise,  are  like- 
wise to  be  exhorted  to  learn  to  read)  and  to  have 
a  Bible." 

The  Ordinance  of  Parliament  superseding  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer,  and   establishing  and 
ordering  ]to  be  put  in  practice  the  Directory  for 
Public  Worship,  as  thus  revised  by  the  Houses, 
bears  the  date  of  3d  January  1644,  i.  e.  according 
to  our  present  reckoning,  January  1645.     But  in 
reality  it  was  not  passed  till  the  following  day, 
when  the  Commons'  amendments  on  the  Lords' 
amendments   were   accepted    by   the   Lords,   nor, 
though    ordered  to  be   printed    forthwith,  was  it 
actually  proceeded  with  till  March.    The  reason  of 
this  delay  will  immediately  appear.     The  formu- 
lary was  meant  to  be  a  common  directory  for  the 
churches  of  the  three  kingdoms,  and  though  the 
Scottish  Commissioners  had  assented  to  it  in  the 
shape  in  which  it  passed  the  Assembly,  yet  as  their 
General  Assembly  and  Parliament  were  about  to 
meet  it  was  manifestly  expedient  that  their  assent 
also  should  be  obtained  before  the  book,  as  altered, 
was  issued.    So  it  was  taken  down  to  Scotland  by 
Gillespie  and   Baillie,  and   in  due   form   was  laid 
before  the  Scottish  Assembly  and  Parliament.    On 
5th  March  two  further  alterations  on  it  were  pro- 
posed at  Westminster  at  the  request  (not,  as  some 
suppose,  of  the  Independents,  but)  of  the  General 

15 


2  26  The  Db^ectory  for  the 

Assembly  of  the  Church  of  Scotland.  Neither 
Baillie  nor  Gillespie  who  carried  it  down  give  us 
any  hint  of  this,  nor  does  the  Act  of  the  Assembly 
approving  it,  nor  the  supplementary  articles  for 
keeping  of  greater  uniformity  in  accordance  with 
it,  supply  the  omission,  unless  by  the  statement  in 
the  Act,  that  the  Assembly  had  "  revised''  as  well 
as  examined  and  approved  the  Directory.  But 
the  entries  ^  in  the  Journals  of  the  House  of  Com- 

^  That  in  the  Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons  (vol.  iv.  p.  70) 
is :  "  Mr.  Tate  reported  from  the  Assembly  some  few  alterations 
desired  by  the  Church  of  Scotland  to  be  made  in  the  Directory  for 
Public  Worship;  the  which  were  read  and  upon  the  question 
assented  unto  and  carried  to  the  Lords  for  their  concurrence." 
The  entry  in  their  Journals  (vol.  vii.  p.  264)  is  as  usual  more  de- 
tailed :  "  A  message  was  brought  from  the  House  of  Commons  by 
Zouch  Tate,  Esq.,  to  let  their  Lordships  know  that  the  House  of 
Commons  have  received  a  paper  from  the  Assembly  of  Divines, 
wherein  they  offer  some  alterations  in  the  Directory  to  which  the 
House  of  Commons  have  agreed,  and  their  Lordships'  concurrence 
is  desired  therein.  The  alterations  were  read  as  follows:  (l)  In 
the  administration  of  the  sacrament  of  baptism,  after  the  word 
"negligent,"  add  these  words,  "requiring  his  solemn  promise  for 
the  performance  of  his  duty."  After  these,  the  words,  "  It  is 
recommended  to  the  parent  to  make  a  profession  of  his  faith,  by 
answering  to  these  or  the  like  questions,"  are  to  be  left  out;  and 
these  three  questions  following  are  to  be  left  out,  viz.,  "  Dost  thou 
believe  in  God  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  ?  Dost  thou  hold 
thyself  bound  to  observe  all  that  Christ  hath  commanded  thee, 
and  wilt  thou  endeavor  so  to  do?  Dost  thou  desire  to  have  this 
child  baptized  into  the  faith  and  profession  of  Jesus  Christ?  "  (2) 
Instead  of  the  words  in  the  Directory  for  the  solemnization  of 
marriage,  "  in  the  place  of  the  public  meeting  of  the  congregation, 
in  some  church  or  chapel,"  these  words  to  be  inserted  :  "  in  the 
place  appointed  by  authority  for  public  worship."  Agreed  to. 
"  The  answer  returned  was  that  this  House  agrees  to  these  altera- 
tions now  brought  up." 


Public  Worship  of  God.  227 

mons  expressly  bear  that  the  proposed  changes 
were  desired  by  the  Church  of  Scotland,  and  those 
in  the  Journals  of  the  other  House  that  the  appli- 
cation for  them  had  been  presented  through  the 
Assembly  of  Divines,  whose  own  minutes  of  6th 
March  contain  only  the  vaguest  possible  reference 
to  "  the  alterations  last  made."  Thus  the  "  fasch- 
ious  "  and  sometimes  "  rude  and  humorous  oppo- 
sition "  of  Mr.  David  Calderwood  and  some  others, 
who  were  tenacious  of  former  Scottish  customs, 
appears  to  a  certain  extent  to  have  been  too 
strong  to  be  so  completely  overborne  even  by 
Gillespie  and  Baillie,  as  has  been  long  supposed. 
Though  no  noise  was  made  in  the  business,  and  all 
was  "  quietly  and  calmly  "  settled,  yet  every  effort 
was  made  "  to  get  satisfaction  to  Mr.  David  "  in 
most  of  the  things  to  which  he  had  objected. 
After  consultation  with  his  colleagues  in  London 
a  draft  of  the  Act  about  the  Directory  passed  by 
the  Scottish  Assembly  and  ratified  by  the  Scottish 
Parliament  was  sent  down  by  Gillespie  to  the 
meeting  of  the  Commission  (intrusted  with  the 
printing  of  the  minutes  of  the  Assembly),  "  having 
no  alteration,"  it  is  said,  "  but  in  words,  and  the 
substance  being  the  same,  only  it  is  thought 
clearer,  and  that  it  will  sound  better  here."  This 
draft,  in  the  enacting  clauses,  not  only  expressed 
approval  of  the  preface  of  the  Directory,  but  inti- 
mated that  the  preface  expressed  the  intent  and 


2  28  The  Directory  for  the 

meaning  of  the  Directory,  and  to  this  extent  at 
least  Gillespie  pressed  its  adoption  with  special 
urgency.  He  deprecated  a  too  strait  imposition 
even  of  a  Directory,  holding  '*  that  the  more 
straitly  it  is  imposed,  it  will  the  more  breed 
scruples  and  create  controversies  which  wise  men 
should  do  well  to  prevent,  and  the  rather  lest  we 
cross  the  principles  of  the  good  old  Nonconform- 
ists by  too  strait  impositions  of  things  in  their  ov»'n 
nature  indifferent,  such  as  many  (though  not  all) 
be  in  the  Directory."  ^  In  England  it  had  been 
ratified  according  to  the  Cleaning  and  intent  of  the 
ordinance  of  Parliament,  which  was  probably 
meant  to  be  pretty  strictly  enforced,  and  in  fact 
required  to  be  so  to  insure  the  disuse  of  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer.  In  Scotland,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  was  ratified  according  to  the  intent  of  the 
preface,  which  was  meant  to  leave  greater  latitude, 
and  to  conserve  that  spirit  of  freedom  which  the 
tolerant  rubrics  of  the  Book  of  Common  Order 
had  previously  done  so  much  to  cherish.  Ac- 
cordingly, while  old  customs  and  practices  which 
could  plead  no  written  law  in  their  favor,  and 
were  not  expressly  sanctioned  by  the  new  Direc- 
tory, were  to  be  dropped,  though  lawful  in  them- 
selves, not  only  were  the  Scottish  usages  of  the 
communicants,  in  the  Lord's  Supper,  communicat- 
ing only  at  the  table  and  distributing  the  elements 

^  Baillie,  Lexers  ami  Journals,  vol.  ii.,  Appendix,  pp.  505,  506. 


Public  Worship  of  God.  229 

among  themselves  to  be  retained,  but  also  other 
usages  which  could  plead  the  authority  of  the 
Books  of  Discipline  or  of  Acts  of  the  Assembly, 
and  were  not  "  otherwise  ordered  "  by  the  Direc- 
tory. Perhaps  it  was  with  a  similar  view  that  they 
urged  even  at  the  last  moment  when  the  Directory 
was  already  before  Parliament  the  striking  out  of 
the  very  vague  questions  which  the  southern 
divines  had  at  last  consented  should  be  addressed 
to  the  parent  presenting  his  child  for  baptism,  viz., 
that  they  might  be  at  liberty  to  retain  the  practice 
sanctioned  by  their  own  Book  of  Common  Order 
and  various  Acts  of  Assembly  of  exacting  a  fuller 
profession  of  faith  at  that  time  from  the  parent. 

The  first  edition  of  the  Directory  published  in 
England  bears  the  date  of  1644,  but  it  was  really 
printed  in  the  month  of  March,  which  according 
to  our  present  reckoning  would  have  fallen  to  the 
year  1645.  The  order  for  printing  was  issued  on 
the  13th,  and  appears  to  have  been  executed  by 
the  1 8th  of  March,  all  having  been  carefully  pre- 
pared for  it  beforehand.  The  Scotch  edition  of 
1645  was  printed,  not  from  the  manuscript  copy 
submitted  to  the  Assembly  in  January,  but  from 
the  English  printed  edition,  and  besides  a  number 
of  insignificant  variations  from  it  in  the  spelling 
of  certain  words,  only  departs  from  it  in  placing 
the  table  of  contents  at  the  beginning  instead  of 
the  end  of  the  book,  substituting  in  place  of  the 


230  The  Directory  for  the 

Act   of  the  English    ParHament  the  Act  of  the 
Scottish  General  Assembly  approving  the  Direc- 
tory and   enjoining   its  observance,  and  inserting 
between  the  first  and   second  titles  of  the    book 
the  Act  of  the  Scottish  Parliament  ratifying  it,  and 
the  Acts   of  the   Committee    of   Estates   and  of 
the  Commission  of  the  Assembly  authorizing  the 
printing  of  it.     As  the  latter  bears  the  date  of 
27th    May    this    edition    can    hardly    have    been 
printed  before  June  1645.     It  was  not  till  August 
that  an  Act  passed   the   Scottish   Parliament   for 
publishing  it.     I  have  before  me  complete  copies 
of  these  original  English  and  Scottish  editions  of 
the  Directory  for  the  Public  Worship  of  God.    The 
former  belonged   to  the  Rev.  Immanuel  Bourne, 
one  of  the   ministers    appointed   by   the   English 
Parliament   to    ordain    ministers   for   the   city   of 
London.     It  has  prefixed  to  it  the  ordinance  for 
the    ordination   of    ministers,    and    appended    in 
manuscript  "a    speech   at   the    sacrament   March 
27th,  1659,"  and  "  a  speech  after  the  sacrament." 
The  latter,  which  is  now  the  property  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  St.  Andrews,  appears  to  have  belonged 
orio-inallv  to  Dr.  William  Moore,  who  was  Arch- 
deacon  of  St.  Andrews  under  the  second  episco- 
pacy, and  left  a  number  of  valuable  Puritan  books 
to  the  University.     A  neat  and  accurate  reprint 
of  the   original  Scottish  edition  of  the  Directory, 
with  a  valuable  historical  introduction  and  copious 


Public  IVorsJiip  of  God,  231 

illustrative  notes,  was  published  by  the   Rev.  Dr. 
Leishman  in  1868.^ 

From  the  tenor  of  the  preface  to  the  Directory 
as  well  as  from  the  testimony  of  Gillespie,  Baillie, 
and  others  engaged  in  framing  it,  we  seem  war- 
ranted to  infer  that  it  was  not  intended  by  its 
framers  to  form  a  new  liturgy,  nor  to  authorize  or 
encourage  the  ministers  of  the  Church  to  turn  the 
help  and  furniture  it  provided  into  fixed  and  unva- 
rying forms  of  prayer  and  exhortation  to  be  re- 
peated verbatim  Sunday  after  Sunday.     No  doubt 

'  The  spelling  has  been  modernized,  but  I  have  noticed  only 
three  other  minute  deviations  from  the  original  in  the  reprint. 
These  are  the  omission  in  the  directory  for  baptism  (p.  306)  of 
"  the  "  before  "  right  use  of  their  baptism  "  and  "  of"  before  "  all 
other  promises  ;  "  and  the  repetition  in  the  directory  for  the  cele- 
bration of  the  communion  (p.  310)  of  "one,"  so  that  it  reads, 
"  He  may  be  one  with  us  and  we  one  with  him  "  instead  of  "  and 
we  with  him."  The  Acts  of  the  Scottish  Parliament  ratifying  the 
Directory,  and  the  Acts  of  the  Committee  of  Estates  and  of  the 
Commission  of  Assembly  authorizing  it  to  be  printed,  are  not  given. 
The  illustrative  notes  are  very  interesting,  but  the  impression  they 
leave  on  the  mind  seems  to  me  to  be  that  rather  more  is  made  of 
the  views  of  certain  speakers  in  the  Assembly  than  facts  warrant. 
The  extracts  from  speeches  of  members,  with  three  or  four  ex- 
ceptions, are  wonderfully  accurate.  But  it  must  always  be  borne  in 
mind  that  these  are  but  selections,  and  at  best  exhibit  only  the  sen- 
timents of  the  speakers,  and  that  these  sentiments  were  sometimes 
modified,  sometimes  passed  from  before  the  close  of  the  discussions. 
The  Assembly  distinctly  disclaimed  responsibility  for  aught  in  the 
scribes'  books  besides  its  own  resolutions  and  orders  as  these  were 
ultimately  adjusted  and  put  on  record.  "  All  our  discourses,"  Mr. 
Marshall  said  on  one  occasion,  "  are  recorded  by  the  scribes  so  far 
as  their  pens  can  reach  them,  but  not  to  be  taken  as  the  judgment 
of  the  Assembly."  Nay,  silence  was  not  to  be  construed  into 
assent  to  things  uttered  in  debate  but  not  "  ordered," 


232  The  Directory  for  the 

Lightfoot  and  one  or  two  of  the  others  thought  it 
dangerous  to  say  anything  against  such  a  practice. 
But  while  the  lawfulness  of  stated  forms  of  prayer 
was  not  expressly  denied,  everything  that  could  be 
prudently  done  was  done  to  persuade  the  ministers 
not  to  rest  satisfied  with  these.  It  was  urged  as  a 
special  ground  of  objection  to  the  old  liturgy  that 
it  had  proved  a  great  means  "  to  make  and  increase 
an  idle  and  unedifying  ministry,  which  contented 
itself  with  set  forms  made  to  their  hands  by  others 
(and  the  same  might  be  said  of  unvarying  forms 
though  made  by  themselves)  without  putting  forth 
themselves  to  exercise  the  gift  of  prayer  with  which 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  pleaseth  to  furnish  all  His 
servants  whom  He  calls  to  that  office."  The 
framers  themselves  distinctly  state  that  in  provid- 
ing certain  materials  of  prayer  and  exhortation 
their  meaning  was  only  "  that  there  might  be  a 
consent  of  all  the  churches  in  those  things  which 
contain  the  substance  of  the  service  and  worship 
of  God,  and  that  the  ministers,  if  need  be,  might 
have  some  help  and  furniture,  and  yet  so  as  they 
become  not  hereby  slothful  and  negligent  in  stir- 
ring up  the  gifts  of  Christ  in  them,  but  that  each 
one  by  taking  heed  to  himself  and  the  flock  of 
God  committed  to  him,  and  by  wise  observing 
the  ways  of  divine  providence,  may  be  careful  to 
furnish  his  heart  and  tongue  with  further  and 
other  materials  of  prayer  and  exhortation  as  shall 


Public  IVorship  of  God,  233 

be  needful  on  all  occasions."  Unquestionably 
they  meant  that  the  individuality  of  the  minister, 
— his  growing  spiritual  experience,  his  maturity  of 
thought,  his  gifts  of  expression  and  utterance, — 
should  come  out  in  leading  the  devotions  of  the 
people  and  acting  as  their  messenger  to  God,  as 
well  as  in  setting  forth  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus, 
and  acting  as  God's  messenger  to  them,  and  also 
that  the  one  exercise  should  be  to  him  matter  of 
thought,  meditation,  preparation  and  prayer,  as 
well  as  the  other,  in  order  that  he  might  make  full 
proof  of  his  ministry  and  commend  himself  to 
every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God.  No 
party  in  the  Assembly,  it  seems  to  me,  went  more 
cordially  or  persistently  in  this  direction  than  the 
Scottish  Commissioners.  It  was  but  the  carrying 
out  of  principles  they  had  been  led  on  to  assert 
in  1637^  and  which  their  Smectymnuan  friends^ 
had  asserted  in  England  in  1641.  The  excitement 
which  Laud's  foolish  action  had  roused  in  Scotland 
still  glowed  in  their  bosoms.  They  heard  unmoved 
the  importunate  pleading  and  entreaties  of  their 
best  friends  in  the  Assembly — Burgess,  Calamy, 
Seaman,  Reynolds  and  Palmer,  that  if  not  from 
regard  to  their  persons,  yet  from  regard  to  the 
credit  of  their  ministry  and  the  whole  ministry 
of  England,  they  would  consent  to  leave  out  from 

1  Row's  History,  pp.  398-406. 

2  Ans'ver  to  Humble  Ke7nonstrance,  pp.  1 2- 1 4. 


2  34  ^/^^  Directory  for  the 

the  proposed  preface  some  of  the  harsher  expres- 
sions against  the  old  Hturgy,  and  allow  it  to  be  laid 
aside  with  honor.  But  they  thought  the  honor 
of  their  own  country  required  it  should  be  more 
strongly  condemned  than  their  English  friends 
were  willing  to  allow ;  and  Gillespie  was  so  cruel 
as  to  tell  them  that  Scotland  would  not  be  satisfied 
with  less,  and  that  its  ceremonies  were  not,  like 
those  of  the  law,  to  be  buried  with  honor,  "  but 
zvitJi  the  burial  of  tJie  iinciraimcisedr  Henderson, 
who  had  more  to  do  than  any  other  in  moulding 
the  sentences  ^  I  have  quoted  from  the  preface  into 
the  form  they  ultimately  assumed,  seems  to  have 
felt  that,  in  the  temper  in  which  his  countrymen 
then  were,  less  would  not  be  accepted  by  them. 
Gillespie  said  expressly  that  "  that  m.an  who  stirs 

1  Neal  has  it  (vol.  iii.  p.  143)  that  several  Independents  were  on 
the  committee  which  drew  up  the  preface,  but  an  addition  had  to 
be  rr.ade  to  this  Committee. .  The  MS.  minutes  as  well  as  Light- 
foot's  Journal,  represent  the  several  reports  about  the  preface  as 
given  in  by  Marshall,  the  Convener  of  the  original  committee,  or 
by  Henderson  who  was  a  member  of  it,  and  took  the  most  pro- 
minent part  in  getting  the  preface  into  the  shape  it  ultimately 
assumed.  One  party,  Baillie  tells  us,  purposed  "  by  the  preface  to 
turn  the  Directory  into  a  straight  liturgy ;  the  other  to  make  it  so 
loose  and  free  that  it  should  serve  for  little  use;  but  God,"  he 
says,  "  helped  us  to  get  both  these  rocks  eschewed."  They  had  to 
concede  something,  however,  to  both  these  parties — to  the  first,  the 
omission  of  a  direct  prohibition  to  turn  the  Directory  into  one 
ordinary  form  of  prayer;  to  the  second,  the  change  of  the  words 
"  concern  the  service  and  worship  of  God  "  into  "  contain  the  sub- 
stance of  the  service  and  worship  of  God,"  so  as  to  make  it  clear 
that  the  uniformity  desired  related  not  to  matters  of  detail  but 
only  to  thoge  of  substantial  importance. 


Public  JVors/iip  of  God.  235 

up  his  own  i^ifts  doth  better  than  he  that  useth  set 
forms,"  and  that  it  was  "  good  to  hold  out  what  is 
best."  That  in  this  they  expressed  only  the  gene- 
ral sentiment  of  the  Church  they  represented  is 
evident  from  the  Directions  for  Family  Worship 
issued  a  few  years  later  by  the  Scottish  General 
Assembly.  "  So  many  as  can  conceive  prayer 
ought  to  make  use  of  that  gift  of  God ;  albeit 
those  who  are  rude  and  weaker  may  begin  at  a 
set  form  of  prayer,  but  so  as  they  be  not  sluggish 
in  stirring  up  in  themselves  (according  to  their 
daily  necessities)  the  spirit  of  prayer  which  is 
given  to  all  the  children  of  God  in  some  measure : 
to  which  effect  they  ought  to  be  more  fervent  and 
frequent  in  secret  prayer  to  God,  for  ennabling 
their  heart  to  conceive  and  their  tongues  to  ex- 
press convenient  desires  to  God  for  their  family." 
These  directions  are  markedly  similar  in  thought 
and  expression  to  those  I  quoted  from  the  West- 
minster Directory,  and  show  unmistakably  how  the 
Church  of  Scotland  understood  these  and  meant 
her  ministers  to  carry  them  out.  Yet  nothing  was 
further  from  their  intentions  than  to  encourage 
unpremeditated  or  purely  extemporary  effusions 
in  prayer  more  than  in  preaching,  or  to  represent 
any  fluency  in  these  as  the  stirring  up  of  that  gift 
which  is  given  to  all  the  children  of  God  in  some 
measure.  As  I  have  already  said,  they  intended 
the  exercise  of  prayer  to  be  matter  of  thought, 


236  The  Directory  for  the 

meditation,  preparation  and  prayer,  equally  with 
the  preaching  of  the  word ;  and  though  no  doubt 
they  deemed  the  arrangement  of  the  thoughts, 
and  the  bringing  of  the  spirit  into  a  proper  frame, 
to  be  the  most  essential  parts  of  the  preparation 
in  both  cases,  they  did  not  mean  to  prohibit  the 
careful  writing  of  prayers  any  more  than  of  ser- 
mons. Even  the  Independents,  to  whom  some 
are  too  ready  to  attribute  both  the  excesses  and 
defects  of  the  Assembly,  had  said  in  their  Apolo- 
getical  Narration,^  *'  Whereas  there  is  this  great 
controversy  about  the  lawfulness  of  set  forms  pre- 
scribed, we  practised  i^ivitJioiit  condemning  others) 
what  all  sides  do  allow,  ....  that  the  public 
prayers  in  our  Assemblies  should  be  framed  by 
the  meditations  and  study  of  our  own  ministers 
out  of  their  own  gifts  ....  as  well  as  their  ser- 
mons use  to  be."  Nay,  their  Coryphaeus,  Mr. 
Nye,  in  the  most  important  speech  he  made  in 
the  Assembly  when  this  preface  was  under  dis- 
cussion, admitted  there  was  a  middle  way  betwixt 
set  forms  and  extemporary  prayers,  and  said,  "  I 
plead  for  neither,  but  for  studied  prayers."  ^  And 
as  he  did  not  himself  object  to  write  his  sermons, 
and  occasionally  in  the  delivery  of  them  to  refer 
to  what  he  had  written,^  we  can  hardly  suppose 
1  P.  12. 

'^  MS,  Minutes  of  Assembly,  vol.  ii.  f.  287. 
•^  Preaching  in  Edinburgh,  "  he  read  much  out  of   his  paper 
book." 


Public  War  ship  of  God.  237 

tliat  he  would  hav^e  objected  to  write  his  prayers 
as  well  as  to  study  them.  This  was  the  practice 
of  some  of  the  most  godly  ministers  the  Church 
of  Scotland  has  ever  had,  who,  though  gifted  with 
readiness  of  utterance  and  felicity  of  devotional 
expression,  and  satisfied  if  in  their  more  private 
ministrations  they  could  arrange  their  thoughts 
and  prepare  their  hearts,  yet  in  the  stated  services 
of  the  sanctuary  made  conscience  of  writing  down 
beforehand  the  substance  of  their  prayers  as  well 
as  of  their  sermons,  though  they  were  no  more  in 
the  habit  of  reading  the  latter  than  the  former. 
I  have  by  me  one  of  the  commonplace  books  of 
John  Willison  of  Dundee  which  shows  that  this 
was  his  usual  practice  even  when  far  advanced  in 
life.  And  Dr.  M'Crie,  the  most  intelligent  and 
uncompromising  defender  of  non-liturgical  wor- 
ship in  later  times,  has  not  hesitated  to  say  in  ex- 
planation of  this  preface,  "  It  does  not  follow  from 
our  not  praying  by  a  set  form  that  we  must  pray 
extempore.  Presbyterians  at  least  require  pre- 
meditation and  study  in  prayer  as  well  as  in 
preaching,  and  disapprove  of  mere  extemporary 
effusions  in  the  former  as  well  as  in  the  latter." 
It  is  only  by  attention  to  this,  and  to  the  earnest 
counsels  of  the  preface  to  our  Directory,  that 
they  should  be  careful  thus  to  furnish  hotJi  heart 
and  tongue  for  the  services  of  devotion  ;  that  men 
of  average  ability  and  spirituality  can  hope  to  do 


238  The  Directory  for  the 

justice  to  the  system  of  free  prayer  therein  en- 
couraged, and  to  enable  their  people  to  reap  from 
it  the  full  spiritual  benefits  it  was  meant  to  confer. 
And  were  they  only  more  careful  and  conscien- 
tious in  doing  this  we  should  hear  less  about  the 
necessity  of  changing  our  form  of  service,  and 
have  it  more  frequently  acknowledged,  as  it  has 
been  by  our  beloved  Sovereign  in  the  Journal  of 
her  Highland  life,  that  the  simple  fervent  prayer  of 
a  Scottish  minister  may  touch  a  chord  in  the  heart 
which  the  grandest  liturgy  had  left  unmoved/ 

I  know  of  no  formulary  of  the  same  sort  which 
is  so  free  from  minute  and  harassing  regulations 
as  to  postures,  gestures,  dresses,  church  pomp, 
ceremonies,  symbolism,  and  other  "  superfluities," 
as  Hales  terms  them,  which  '*  under  pretext  of 
order  and  decency  "  had  crept  into  the  church  and 
more  and  more  had  restricted  the  liberty  and  bur- 
dened the  consciences  of  its  ministers.  I  know 
of  none  in  which,  throughout,  so  clear  a  distinc- 
tion is  kept  up  between  what  Christ  and  his  apos- 
tles have  instituted,  and  which  therefore  may  be 
regarded  as  imperative  in  Christian  worship,  and 
what  has  been  authorized  or  recommended  or  per- 
mitted, under  the  rules  of  Christian  prudence,  by 
later   and    fallible    church    authorities,    and    the 

^  "  The  second  prayer  was  very  touching ;  his  allusions  to  us 
were  so  simple,  saying  after  his  mention  of  us,  *  Bless  their 
children.'  It  gave  me  a  lump  in  my  throat,  as  also  when  he 
prayed  for  the  dying,  the  wounded,  the  widow  and  the  orphans." 


Public  Worship  of  God.  2^g 

observance  of  which  therefore  is  to  be  required 
or  recommended  or  allowed,  if  at  all,  with  greater 
reserve  as  well  as  with  more  consideration  for  the 
scruples  even  of  weaker  brethren.  As  has  been 
well  said,  *'  The  obligation  to  a  practice  is  not  the 
same  when  it  is  described  in  the  Directory  as 
7uxcssajy,  requisite,  expedient^  cojiveiiient','  laivful, 
or  sufficient,  or  when  it  is  directed,  advised,  or 
reconintended,  nor  finally  when  it  is  provided  "  in 
one  place  that  the  minister  is  to,  or  sJiall,  in  another 
may  I'  or  in  another  let  him,  "  do  such  and  such 
things." 

The  tolerant  purpose  of  those  who  framed  it  is 
fully  expressed  in  their  letter  to  the  Scottish  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  1645,  in  which  they  say,  "We 
have  not  advised  any  imposition  which  might 
make  it  unlawful  to  vary  from  it  in  anything ;  yet 
we  hope  all  our  reverend  brethren  in  this  kingdom 
and  in  yours  also,  will  so  far  value  and  reverence 
that  which  upon  so  long  debate  and  serious  delib- 
eration hath  been  agreed  upon  in  this  Assembly . . . 
that  it  shall  not  be  the  less  regarded  and  observed. 
And  albeit  we  have  not  expressed  in  the  Directory 
every  minute  particular  which  is  or  might  be  either 
laid  aside  or  retained  among  us  as  comely  and 
useful  in  practice ;  yet  we  trust  that  none  will  be 
so  tenacious  of  old  customs  not  expressly  forbid- 
den, or  so  averse  from  good  examples  although 
new,  in  matters  of  lesser  consequence,  as  to  insist 


240  The  Directory  for  the 

upon  their  liberty  of  retaining  the  one  or  refusing 
the  other  because  not  specified  in  the  Directory." 
The  materials  for  prayer  and  exhortation  provided 
in  the  Directory  were  not  meant  by  its  framers,  as 
they  explain  in  the  preface,  to  do  more  than  sup- 
ply help  and  furniture,  of  which  the  officiating 
minister  might  avail  himself  It  was  said  indeed 
by  Mr.  Marshall,  when  he  first  brought  in  the  part 
relating  to  the  ordinary  services  for  the  Lord's  day, 
that  it  did  "  not  only  set  down  the  heads  of  things 
but  so  largely,  as  that  with  the  altering  of  here 
and  there  a  word  a  man  may  mould  it  into  a 
prayer."  But  when  reminded  of  this  some  months 
afterward,  when  he  brought  in  the  first  draft  of 
the  Preface  bearing  a  statement  that  this  was  not 
intended,  he  said,  "  Some  such  expression  did  fall 
from  my  mouth  ;  I  said  as  one  reason  why  it  was 
so  large,  here  he  might  have  such  furniture  as  that 
with  a  little  help  he  may  do  it.  But  there  is  no 
contradiction  to  say  that  we  do  not  intend  it.  It 
is  not  a  direct  prohibition."  (MS.  Minutes,  vol.  ii. 
f.  286  b.)  In  other  words,  those  who  conducted 
the  ordinary  services  were  not  directly  prohibited 
from  turning  the  materials  furnished  to  them  into 
an  unvarying  form  of  prayer,  keeping  as  near  to 
the  words  of  the  Directory  as  they  could  ;  but  at 
the  same  time  they  were  not  only  not  restricted 
or  counseled  to  do  so,  but  they  were  counseled 
and  encouraged  to  do  something  more,  according 


Public  W or  s  J  lip  of  God.  241 

to  their  ability  and  opportunities.  The  materials 
provided  for  the  ordinary  services  of  the  Lord's 
day  are  no  doubt  much  fuller  than  those  provided 
for  special  and  occasional  services,  and,  being 
meant  for  the  guidance  of  young  preachers  as 
well  as  of  ordained  ministers,  they  required  to  be 
so.  But  I  confess  that  the  more  I  examine  them, 
the  more  I  am  satisfied  that  even  they  were  meant 
to  be  expanded,  and  required  to  be  so  in  order  to 
bring  out  their  real  value,  and  their  adaptation  to 
the  purpose  they  were  meant  to  serve.  They  are 
so  packed  with  matter,  that  their  full  significance 
cannot  otherwise  really  be  brought  home  to  the 
heart  and  conscience,  nor  would  they  without 
such  expansion  have  satisfied  the  eager  craving 
for  lengthened  services  which  had  then  set  in. 
Much  more  is  this  the  case  with  the  occasional 
services  and  especially  with  those  for  the  adminis- 
tration of  Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper.  In 
this  last  particularly  only  the  barest  outline  is  given 
both  of  the  exhortations  and  of  the  prayers.  The 
materials  of  the  preliminary  exhortation  supply  the 
outlines  of  one  of  the  most  complete  and  impres- 
sive addresses  to  be  found  in  any  of  the  Reformed 
Agenda ;  and  feelingly  expanded,  as  men  like  the 
late  Dr.  Crawford  were  wont  to  expand  them,  could 
not  fail  to  be  most  refreshing  to  every  spiritually- 
minded  communicant.  They  have  been  collected 
from  various  sources,  and,  like  the  materials  of  the 

16 


242  The  Directory  for  tJie 

prayers,  they  show  that  the  draft  of  the  Scotch  had 
passed  through  EngHsh  hands,  and  been  greatly 
improved  and  enriched  by  doing  so.  The  verbal 
coincidences  with  *'  the  former  Hturgy  "  both  in  the 
exhortations  and  prayers  are  too  many  and  too 
marked  to  be  accounted  for  in  any  other  way,  and 
it  is  the  highest  commendation  of  this  part  of  their 
work  that  it  has  fused  into  one  so  much  of  what  was 
best  in  the  Knoxian  and  the  Anglican  Communion 
Offices.  The  materials  of  the  Consecration  Prayer 
are  taken  mainly  from  that  in  Knox's  Book  of 
Common  Order,  which  rises  so  immeasurably 
above  the  other  prayers  in  his  Book.  But  the 
last  part  of  that,  as  well  as  the  materials  of  the 
concluding  thanksgiving,  shows  more  affinity  with 
English  forms,^  and  tends  to  make  this  Directory 

^  Even  with  the  earlier  Edwardian  form.  The  words  of  the 
prayer  in  it  "  with  thy  Holy  Spirit  and  word  vouchsafe  to  bless  and 
sanctify  these  thy  gifts  and  creatures  of  bread  and  wine,  that  they 
may  be  unto  us  the  body  and  blood  of  thy  most  dearly  beloved 
Son  Jesus  Christ,"  along  with  those  in  the  exhortation  preceding, 
*'  for  us  to  feed  upon  spiritually,"  "  we  dwell  in  Christ  and  Christ 
in  us,  we  be  made  one  with  Christ  and  Christ  with  us,"  reappear 
in  slightly  modified  form  in  the  Directory  :  "  to  vouchsafe  his 
gracious  presence  and  the  effectual  working  of  His  Spirit  in  us  and 
so  to  sanctify  these  elements  both  of  bread  and  wine  and  to  bless 
his  own  ordinance  that  we  may  receive  by  faith  the  body  and  blood 
of  Christ  crucified  for  us  and  so  feed  upon  him  that  he  may  be  one 
with  us  and  we  with  him,  that  he  may  live  in  us  and  we  in  him  and 
to  him."  Probably  we  owe  these  and  other  approximations  to  the 
English  Communion  Office  to  Dr.  Burgess,  to  whom  the  final  re- 
vision and  transcription  of  most  of  the  Assembly's  formularies  was 
intrusted.     He  had  copies  of  both  liturgies  of  Edward  VI. 


Public  iVo7'sJiip  of  God.  243 

more  complete  in  all  that  such  a  service  should 
embrace  than  any  similar  ofifice  either  in  the  re- 
formed or  the  ancient  church.  The  Communion 
according  to  the  Directory  was  frequently  to  be 
celebrated,  but  it  was  left  to  the  minister  and  elders 
of  each  congregation  to  determine  how  frequently 
it  should  be  so — regard  being  ahvays  had  to  their 
comfort  and  edification  therein.  In  England,  in 
those  times  of  revival,  it  was  not  uncommon  that 
the  Communion  should  be  administered  monthly^ 
in  Presbyterian  and  weekly  in  Independent  con- 
gregations. In  Scotland  all  attainable  evidence 
tends  to  show  that  it  was  administered  much  more 
rarely,  though  even  then  the  practice  had  begun 
of  the  more  pious  of  the  people  resorting  to  the 
Communion  when  celebrated  in  neighboring  par- 
ishes as  well  as  in  their  own.  In  some  parishes 
during  the  painful  contentions  between  engagers 
and  non-engagers,  and  between  resolutioners  and 
protesters,  the  celebration  of  the  communion  was 
intermitted  for  two  or  three  years.  It  is  sad  to 
think  that  men  like  Blair,  Rutherfurd,  and  Wood 
should  have  made  their  differences  in  such  minor 

'  "  Blessed  be  God,  we  have  now  our  Christian  new  moons  and 
evangelical  feast  of  trumpets.  We  have  not  only  our  monthly 
sacrament  feast  to  refresh  our  souls  withal  in  most  of  our  congre- 
£;ations  ...  but  our  monthly  fasts  in  which  the  word  is  preached, 
trading  ceaseth,  and  sacrifices  of  prayer,  praises,  and  alms  are 
tendered  up  to  God." — Preface  to  Calamy's  Sermon,  23d  February 
1641.  The  disputes  as  to  disci})line  led  to  less  frequent  celebration. 


244  ^/^^  Directo7y  for  the 

matters  a  plea  for  withholding  from  the  congre- 
gation of  St.  Andrews  the  comfort  of  this  ordi- 
nance for  more  than  six  years. 

Perhaps  Scotland  was  not  unprepared  for  the 
changes  which  the  substitution  of  the  Directory 
in  place  of  the  Book  of  Common  Order  involved. 
Those  changes  were  not  so  great  as  some  imagine. 
Free  prayer,  which  from  the  first  had  been  per- 
mitted and  encouraged,  and  had  latterly,  if  Calder- 
wood  is  to  be  trusted,  become  general,  was  now 
made  imperative  on  the  minister,  but  *'  help  and 
furniture  "  in  the  various  exercises  were  provided  ; 
and  that  no  one  should  ima^^ine  that  encouracre- 
ment  was  thus  meant  to  be  given  to  ministers  to 
engage  in  the  public  services  of  the  sanctuary  in 
the  perfunctory  manner  Dr.  Hammond  has  de- 
scribed, it  is  directed  that  each  one  "  be  careful  to 
furnish  his  heart  and  tongue  with  further  or  other 
materials  of  prayer  and  exhortation  as  shall  be 
needful  on  all  occasions."  But  in  England  the 
case  was  far  otherwise.  Even  inside  the  Puritan 
circle,  there  were  not  a  few  who  would  have  pre- 
ferred to  amend  rather  than  ''to  lay  aside  the 
former  liturgy,"  and  many  more  of  the  wisest  and 
best  who,  through  their  own  leanings  may  have 
been  in  favor  of  a  more  thorough  reform,  knew 
how  hard  it  would  be  to  persuade  a  large  part  of 
the  nation  and  of  the  ministry  to  accept  it,  and  felt 
how  greatly  it  would  add  to  the  difficulty  of  the 


Public  Worship  of  God.  245 

task  of  preserving  unbroken  the  religious  unity  of 
the  nation,  to  proscribe  that  to  which  so  many 
were  attached  by  most  hallowed  associations  and 
tender  memories.  Even  the  ministers  generally 
were  not  nearly  so  well  prepared  for  the  change 
as  those  in  Scotland.  Dr.  Hammond'  makes 
merry  over  what  he  supposes  was  an  ingenious 
device,  under  pretence  of  supplying  ships  which 
wanted  a  minister,  to  help  all  such  idle  mariners 
in  the  ship  of  the  Church.  This  was  a  little  trea- 
tise issued  within  two  months  after  the  Directory 
was  published,  and  entitled  "  A  supply  of  prayer 
for  the  ships  of  this  kingdom  that  want  ministers 
to  pray  with  them,  agreeable  to  the  Directory 
established  by  Parliament,  published  by  authority; 
London,  John  Field,  1645."— (E.  284,  No.  16.) 
Such  a  treatise  might  have  been  as  honestly  issued 
by  the  Assembly  at  that  time  as  the  volume  of 
"  Prayers  for  the  use  of  soldiers,  sailors,  colonists, 
and  sojourners  in  India  and  other  persons  at  home 
and  abroad,  who  are  deprived  of  the  ordinary  ser- 
vices of  a  Christian  ministry  "  was  by  the  Church 
of  Scotland  in  our  own  day,  and  with  as  little  in- 
tention of  encouraging  an  idle  and  unedifying  min- 
istry. But  I  rather  incline  to  think  the  "  device  " 
may  have  been  a  device  of  the  enemy  to  burlesque 
their  work.  I  cannot  find  any  authority  given 
by  Parliament  or  the  Assembly  for  the  publication, 

^  View  of  the  New  Directory,  etc.,  p.  80. 


246  TJic  Directory  for  the 

and  the  preface  or  reason  assigned  for  the  work 
seems  to  me  to  be  written  in  a  somewhat  serio- 
comic vein.  It  appeared  in  May  and  it  was  not 
till  August  that  the  Parliament  took  steps  to  en- 
force their  ordinance  as  to  the  old  liturgy. 

Probably  the  most  remarkable  and  not  least 
useful  part  of  this  formulary  is  the  section  "  Of 
Preaching  the  Word."  This  was  a  subject  not 
usually  handled  in  such  treatises,  but  it  was  one 
to  which  Puritanism  from  the  first  attached  great 
importance,  and  to  which  all  who  hold  the  pro- 
phetic or  evangelistic  in  opposition  to  the  sacer- 
dotal theory  of  the  Christian  ministry  attach 
great  importance  still.  The  Puritans  mourned 
over  the  paucity  of  preaching  ministers  in  the 
Church  in  the  reigns  of  the  Tudors  and  Stuarts, 
and  pleaded  with  the  authorities  in  Church  and 
State  to  take  further  securities  for  the  efficient  per- 
formance of  their  function  by  every  parish  min- 
ister. They  did  what  they  could  in  an  unofficial 
way,  by  their  prophesyings  and  conferences,  to 
quicken  their  brethren  to  a  sense  of  duty  in  this 
matter.  To  train  them  for  it  was  one  of  the  first 
objects  to  which  they  directed  attention  when  their 
day  of  prosperity  came  round,  and  at  which  they 
labored  with  a  perseverance  and  intensity  only  to 
be  accounted  for  by  the  deepest  sense  of  its  im- 
portance to  the  well-being  of  a  Reformed  church. 
Not    that    they    overlooked    catechising    or   any 


Public  Worship  of  God.  247 

means  of  elementary  instruction,  as  Dr.  Hammond 
would  insinuate  (for  their  whole  history  shows 
how  earnest  and  successful  they  were  in  these), 
but  that  they-held  that  even  such  work  could  not 
be  efficiently  carried  on  so  as  to  promote  the  real 
quickening  of  the  lapsed  and  uneducated  masses, 
by  mere  mechanical  drill  in  the  words  of  a  cate- 
chism and  without  constant  recourse  to  that  simple 
expository  teaching,  and  personal  application,  which 
Archbishop  Laud  and  his  party  had  discouraged, 
but  which  no  authority  nowadays  would  dream  of 
prohibiting.  Even  in  Cartwright's  Directory,  pre- 
pared in  the  previous  century,  special  attention  had 
been  drawn  to  the  subject  of  preaching  and  some 
wise  counsels  given  respecting  it.  But  in  this  form- 
ulary, drawn  up  in  the  heyday  of  Puritanism,  we 
have  from  the  hand  of  one  of  the  greatest  masters, 
and  revised  by  the  ablest  of  the  school,  a  summary 
of  their  thought  and  experience  on  a  subject  which 
they  had  made  peculiarly  their  own,  and  on  which 
if  on  any  they  may  claim  to  give  counsel  still. 
Dr.  Hammond  disparages  even  this,  but  Mr.  Mars- 
den  says  of  it:^  ''Every  sentence  is  admirable. 
So  much  good  sense  and  deep  piety,  the  results 
of  great  and  diversified  experience,  and  of  a 
knowledge  so  profound,  have  probably  never  been 
gathered  into  so  small  a  space  on  the  subject  of 
ministerial  teaching.     It  is  one  that  has  received 

1  Later  Pnriiians,  pp.  88,  89. 


248  TJie  Directory  for  the 

attention  in  successive  ages  from  teachers  of  dif- 
ferent schools  and  of  various  tastes  and  habitudes 
of  mind.  .  .  .  But  a  brief  chapter  of  four  pages 
here  comprises  an  amount  of  wise  instruction 
which  will  not  readily  be  found  elsewhere.  The 
Divines  of  Westminster  were  among;  the  masters 
of  this  sacred  art;  whether  we  estimate  their 
power  by  the  enthusiasm  of  their  crowded  con- 
gregations, by  the  better  test  of  their  writings  and 
printed  sermons,  or  by  the  still  higher  touchstone 
of  permanent  success,  ...  in  turning  sinners  from 
the  error  of  their  ways,  in  edifying  the  church  and 
fitting  men  for  God.  After  a  variety  of  lessons 
marked  by  great  judgment  and  good  sense  ,  .  . 
they  conclude  with  a  series  of  admonitions  to  the 
preacher  to  look  to  the  condition  of  his  own  heart, 
and  to  keep  alive  the  flame  of  love  and  holiness 
within."  In  the  copy  of  the  Directory  which  be- 
longed to  Immanuel  Bourne  the  first  part  of  this 
section  is  carefully  and  minutely  subdivided  and 
annotated,  and  special  attention  is  directed  to  the 
sentence  which  counsels  the  preacher  still  to  seek 
for  further  illumination  of  God's  Spirit  by  prayer 
and  a  humble  heart,  *'  resolving  to  admit  and 
receive  any  truth  not  yet  attained  whenever  God 
shall  make  it  known  to  him." 

During  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1644,  while 
the  Assembly  and  the  House  of  Commons  were 
so  busily  engaged  in  adjusting  the  Directories  for 


Public  WorsJiip  of  God.  249 

Ordination  and  for  Public  Worship,  the  House  of 
Lords  had  been  occupied  with  the  trial  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  For  more  than  three 
years  he  had  been  kept  as  a  close  prisoner  in  the 
Tower.  Friends  had  urged  him  to  escape  while  he 
was  so  long  neglected,  and  had  offered  to  aid  him 
in  doing  so.  But  he  had  resolved  calmly  to  abide 
the  issue.  From  week  to  week  during  the  greater 
part  of  this  anxious  year  the  old  man  came  before 
the  peers  leaning  on  his  staff,  and  it  is  said  attired 
in  black  gown  and  cap,  and  yet  even  so  not  always 
respectfully  treated  by  the  populace.  Ably  and 
resolutely  did  he  defend  himself  from  the  various 
charges  brought  against  him,  and  the  peers  hesi- 
tated to  adjudge  his  offenses  treason.  But  as  in 
the  case  of  Strafford  a  bill  of  attainder  was  at  length 
brought  in  and  finally  passed  on  4th  January 
1644-5.  Even  his  opponents  must  confess  that 
"  nothing  in  life  became  him  like  the  leaving  it." 
A  pardon  from  the  king  in  his  favor  was  produced 
to  the  Houses,  but  it  was  disregarded  by  them. 
His  petition,  touching  yet  dignified,  that  in  con- 
sideration of  his  age  and  calling,  his  sentence  might 
at  least  be  commuted,  was  also  disregarded,  and  it 
was  only  after  a  second  application  that  the  House 
of  Commons  acceded  even  to  his  modified  request 
that  the  manner  of  his  death  should  be  changed, 
and  he  should  be  not  hanged  but  beheaded.  So 
on   Friday    loth   January   the   aged   primate   was 


250  The  Directory  for  the 

brought  forth  for  execution  on  Tovverhill  in  the 
presence  of  an  immense  crowd  of  spectators  esti- 
mated in  one  of  the  newspapers  of  the  time  at 
more  than  100,000.  His  last  address  was  a  sort 
of  discourse  founded  on  Hebrews  xii.  i,  etc.,  which 
was  very  variously  reported  in  the  royalist  and  par- 
liamentary newspapers;  and  surely  it  was  small 
wonder  if,  as  the  old  man  gazed  on  that  sea  of 
upturned  hostile  faces,  his  memory  misgave  him, 
or  that  even  with  the  aid  of  notes  he  gave  but  im- 
perfect utterance  to  his  thoughts.  Then  came  a 
brief  but  affecting  prayer  as  to  which  there  is  no 
material  variation,^  and  with  a  single  blow  of  the 
executioner's  axe  his  gray  head  was  severed  from 
his  body,  and  his  spirit  passed  to  its  rest.  The 
House  of  Lords  had  been  far  from  keen  in  the 
prosecution  of  this  last  of  statesman-prelates,  feel- 
ing that  however  grievous  his  errors  had  been,  there 
was  now  but  little  risk  of  his  doing  further  harm  to 
the  State.  Several  even  of  the  Commons  are  said 
to  have  shown  a  disposition  to  relent.  But  the  ma- 
jority, Presbyterians  as  well  as  Independents,  could 

1  "  Lord,  I  am  coming  as  fast  as  I  can.  I  know  I  must  pass 
through  the  shadow  of  deatli,  before  I  can  come  to  see  thee,  but 
it  is  but  umbra  mortis,  a  mere  shadow  of  death,  a  little  darkness 
upon  nature;  but  thou  by  thy  merits  and  passion  hast  broke 
through  the  jaws  of  death ;  so  Lord  receive  my  soul  and  have 
mercy  upon  me,  and  bless  this  kingdom  with  peace  and  plenty, 
and  with  brotherly  love  and  charity,  that  there  may  not  be  this 
effusion  of  Christian  blood  amongst  them,  for  Jesus  Christ's  sake, 
if  it  be  thy  will." 


Public  Woi^ship  of  God.  251 

not  be  persuaded  to  let  the  prosecution  drop. 
The  feeling  of  the  London  populace  and  of  the 
more  fanatical  sectaries  against  him  was  very- 
strong,  and  had  been  intensified  by  the  many 
satirical  pamphlets  which  had  been  put  in  circula- 
tion since  his  fall.  The  Assembly  has  been  blamed 
for  doing  nothing  to  allay  the  excitement  and 
prevent  the  scandal  of  the  chief  minister  of  the 
Church  being  doomed  to  such  a  fate.  Yet  neither 
their  own  minutes  nor  the  Journals  of  the  Houses 
furnish  the  least  evidence  that  as  a  body  they  did 
aught  to  help  it  on.  Even  as  to  individual  mem- 
bers I  doubt  if  the  expressions  Professor  Masson 
has  quoted  from  the  sermons  of  two  or  three  of 
them  were  meant  specially  to  refer  to  him,  and  not 
rather  to  those  who  were  directly  responsible  for 
the  war,  and  had  actually  shed  blood  in  it  or  in 
the  Irish  massacres.  The  most  melancholy  utter- 
ances in  the  sermons  of  Woodcock  and  Stanton 
reappear  in  several  of  those  preached  in  the  follow- 
ing year,  when  no  such  reference  can  be  imagined, 
and  are  but  the  emphatic  expression  of  the  opinion 
then  all  but  universally  held  and  acted  on  that  they 
who  shed  innocent  blood  could  only  atone  for  it 
by  their  own.^     The  Scots  also  have  been  severely 

^  The  only  discourse  I  have  met  with  which  openly  vindicates 
the  deed,  and  glories  in  it,  was  not  preached  before  the  Houses  of 
Parliament  nor  by  a  member  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines.  Its  title 
is  "  Jehoiada's  justice  against  Mattan,  Kaal's  high  priest,"  and  its 
spirit  is  as  atrocious  as  its  title.     The  author  does  not  give  his 


252  The  Directory  for  the 

blamed,  but  with  still  less  occasion.  They  no 
doubt  felt  keenly  at  first  and  resented  bitterly  the 
sufferings  his  policy  had  entailed  on  them.  But 
Baillie,  who  knew  and  did  not  hesitate  to  speak 
their  mind,  shows  no  such  resentment.  He  says 
expressly,  when  intimating  to  his  correspondent 
in  Holland  that  the  trial  had  begun,  "  He  is  a 
person  now  so  contemptible  that  we  take  no  notice 
of  his  process."  And  at  a  later  stage,  when  speak- 
ing intemperately  of  the  "  malicious  invectives  "  of 
one  of  the  prelates  of  his  own  country,  he  adds,  "  I 
could  hardly  consent  to  the  hanging  of  Canterbury 
himself,  or  of  any  Jesuit,  yet  I  could  give  my 
sentence  freely  against  that  liar's  life."  The  insinu- 
ation against  Henderson  in  the  Oxford  royalist 
paper  of  the  day,  is  but  one  of  its  many  slanders 
against  the  man  who  was  its  ecclesiastical  bete  noire 
as  unmistakably,  as  Lord  Say  and  Seale  was  its 
secular  one.  But  by  whomsoever  the  deed  may 
have  been  prompted,  and  however  it  may  have 
been  excused  at  the  time  when  the  memory  of  his 
rigor  and  cruelty  was  fresh,  it  will  now  be  all  but 
universally  admitted  to  have  been  a  blunder  as 
well  as  a  crime.  It  brought  deserved  discredit  on 
the  Parliament,  revolted  not  a  few  of  its  friends, 

name,  but  only  his  initials,  J.  H.  Even  if  he  was  the  Julius  Herring, 
still  more  if  he  was  only  a  relative  of  the  Julius  Herring  who  was 
the  subject  of  Laud's  coarse  and  unfeeling  jest,  "  I  will  soon  pickle 
that  herring,"  one  cannot  speak  of  his  act  but  in  terms  of  the 
strongest  reprobation. 


Public  Worship  of  God.  253 

exasperated  a  number  of  the  best  of  its  opponents, 
embittered  greatly  the  relations  between  the  lead- 
ing clergymen  on  both  sides,  and  more  than  almost 
any  other  single  occurrence  destroyed  for  a  genera- 
tion all  hope  of  honorable  compromise  and  cordial 
co-operation  between  them  in  the  cause  of  religion, 
and  the  interests  of  highest  concern  to  their  com- 
mon country. 


LECTURE   VIII. 

TREATISES  ON    CHURCH-GOVERNMENT,    CHURCH    CEN- 
SURES, AND  ORDINATION  OF    MINISTERS. 

In  my  last  Lecture  I  gave  you  a  succinct 
account  of  the  Directory  for  the  PubHc  Worship 
of  God  prepared  by  a  special  committee,  and  after 
careful  revision  adopted  by  the  Assembly  in  1644. 
I  am  to-day  to  speak  of  the  treatises  on  church- 
government,  church  censures,  and  ordination  of 
ministers,  which  were  prepared  almost  simultane- 
ously with  that  Directory.  Two  or  perhaps,  more 
strictly  speaking,  three  treatises  on  these  subjects 
were  drawn  up  by  the  Westminster  Assembly  in 
the  course  of  the  first  two  years  of  its  sessions. 
The  one  to  which  it  first  addressed  itself  was  that 
for  which  it  began  to  make  preparations  immedi- 
ately after  receiving  from  the  two  Houses  the 
order  for  its  members  to  "  confer  and  treat  among 
themselves  of  such  a  discipline  and  government 
as  may  be  most  agreeable  to  God's  holy  word  and 
most  apt  to  procure  the  peace  of  the  Church  and 
nearer  agreement  with  other  reformed  Churches." 
It  may  be  said  to  have  formed  the  chief  occu- 

254 


Treatises  on   CJmrch- Government,  ete.   255 

pation  of  the  Assembly  during  the  remainder  of 
the  year  1643  and  during  the  greater  part  of  1644. 
It  proved  a  work  of  great  labor  and  difficulty,  and 
it  was  in  connection  with  it  that  those  keen  and 
almost  interminable  debates  between  the  Presby- 
terians and  Independents  took  place,  which  broke 
the  harmony  of  the  Assembly  and  retarded  its 
more  important  work.  This  treatise  was  entitled 
by  its  framers,  Propositions  coiicernijig  CJiurcJi- 
Government  and  Ordination  of  Ministers,  but  it  is 
now  generally  known  and  referred  to  as  the  Form 
of  CJmrch-Govcrnment,  probably  because  that  was 
the  title  arranged  for  the  treatise  on  church-gov- 
ernment in  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant. 
Under  this  title  it  still  holds  its  place  in  Scottish 
editions  of  the  Westminster  standards.  It  em- 
bodies in  the  form  of  distinct  propositions,  ar- 
ranged in  logical  connection,  and  accompanied 
with  the  Scripture  proofs  which  were  held  to 
warrant  them,  the  conclusions  in  which  the  As- 
sembly saw  fit  from  time  to  time  to  sum  up  the 
results  of  its  lengthened  and  exhaustive  discus- 
sions. It  treats  in  succession  of  the  Head  of  the 
Church,  of  the  Church  itself,  and  the  officers 
whom  Christ  its  Head  has  given  it,  viz.,  pastors, 
teachers,  other  church  governors  (whom  reformed 
churches  commonly  call  elders),  and  deacons, 
then  of  particular  congregations,  and  the  officers 
and   ordinances   appropriate   to   them,  of  church- 


256    Treatises  on   Church- Gove7^nment, 

government,  the  several  sorts  of  assemblies  for 
exercising  it,  and  the  common  and  distinctive 
powers  of  these  several  assemblies,  and  finally  of 
the  doctrine  and  power  of  ordination  accompanied 
by  a  practical  directory  for  the  ordination  of  min- 
isters. Prefixed  to  Gillespie's  Notes  of  the  Debates 
and  Proceedings  of  the  Assembly,  as  I  stated  in  a 
former  lecture,  we  have  in  tabulated  form  the 
votes  or  separate  resolutions  of  the  Assembly  out 
of  which  the  Propositions  were  gradually  framed, 
accompanied  in  the  margin  by  a  notification  of  the 
date  or  at  least  of  the  session  when  each  separate 
vote  was  passed,  and  of  the  fact  whether  it  was 
ordei-ed,  that  is,  accepted  without  discussion,  or 
resolved  on  after  debate  and  perhaps  a  formal  vote. 
The  latest  entry,  however,  in  this  tabulated  form 
was  made  in  the  i86th  session,  or  on  25th  March 
1644,  and  thus  unfortunately  it  does  not  include 
the  votes  regarding  the  gradation  of  church  courts 
and  their  respective  powers,  nor  even  the  greater 
part  of  those  relating  to  the  ordination  of  ministers. 
It  is  authenticated  by  the  subscriptions  both  of  the 
assessors,  and  of  the  scribes  of  the  Assembly,  and 
it  was  probably  got  by  Gillespie  and  his  colleagues 
that  it  might  be  forwarded  to  the  commissioners 
of  the  General  Assembly  in  their  own  country,  to 
whom  they  were  required  from  time  to  time  to 
give  account  of  their  proceedings.  But  if  so,  it 
was   not  formally  communicated  to  the   General 


CJmrch   Cens7cres,  etc,  257 

Assembly  of  that  year,  nor  indeed  in  accordance 
with  the  provisions  of  the  ordinance  calHng  the 
Westminster  Assembly  could  any  public  use  be 
made  of  it  at  that  date.  It  is  only  one  of  several 
indications  v^e  have  that  they  occasionally  sent 
documents  as  well  as  notes  of  their  speeches  to 
these  commissioners,  as  it  is  also  one  of  several 
indications  that  besides  the  books  in  which  Byfield 
inserted  notes  of  the  speeches  of  the  members 
and  formal  minutes  of  their  meetings  there  was 
another  (probably  under  the  charge  of  his  col- 
league Roborough)  in  which  their  votes  alone, 
and  so  the  separate  propositions  contained  in 
their  formularies  of  church  order,  worship,  and 
doctrine,  were  recorded  as  they  were  voted,  which 
book  is  now  hopelessly  lost.^ 

It  was  not  till  the  8th  November  1644  that  the 
Propositions,  or  at  any  rate  the  main  part  of  them 
(I  suppose  so  far  as  they  are  printed  on  the  first 
sixteen  pages  of  the  Scotch  edition  of  1647),  were 
presented  by  Dr.  Burgess  and  some  others  of  the 
Divines  to  the  House  of  Commons  as  "  the  humble 
advice  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines  now  by  authority 
of  Parliament  sitting  at  Westminster  concerning 
some  part  of    church-government."      And  on   p. 

1  Vol.  i,  of  the  MS.  Minutes  under  session  i86  or  25th  March, 
1644,  records  the  appointment  of  the  prolocutor,  assessors,  and 
scribes  as  a  committee,  but  does  not  indicate  the  object  for  which 
they  were  appointed.  Possibly  it  was  to  prepare  this  vidimus  of 
votes. 

17 


258    Treatises  on   C/mrch- Government, 

16  of  the  edition  of  the  Propositions  above  men- 
tioned, the  statement  (no  doubt  given  in  on  this 
occasion)  has  been  allowed  to  stand  as  it  origin- 
ally  did :    "  Some    other    particulars    concerning 
church-government    do    yet    remain    unfinished, 
which  shall  be  with  all  convenient  speed  prepared 
and  presented  to  this  honorable   House.      "  But 
when  by  a  subsequent  message  from   the   House 
they  were  requested  to  send  in  with  all  convenient 
speed  all  the  parts  of  church-government  that  are 
yet  behind,"  they  replied  by  Mr.  Marshall  "  that 
all   the  material  parts  of  church-government  are 
already  brought  up"  with  the  exception  of  that 
relating  to  church-censures,  the  tibi  of  which  was 
a  subject  of  theological  dispute  about  which  they 
had    not  yet  agreed.     The  conclusions  to  which 
they   ultimately  came   respecting    it  were    incor- 
porated  not  with  the    Propositions,  but  with  the 
Directory  for  church-government,  etc.     When  and 
how  the  Propositions  contained  on  pp.  17  to  26  of 
the  Scotch  edition  of  1647  were  moulded  into  the 
precise  shape   in  which  we  there  find   them,  it  is 
not  so   easy  exactly  to  determine.     In   all  likeli- 
hood this  was  the  part  of  the  Directory  which  was 
first  completed   and  presented   to  the  Houses,  to 
enable  them  to  make  temporary  arrangements  for 
the  ordination  of  ministers.     From  the  full  notes  of 
the  debates  given  in  Lightfoot's  Journal  it  is  evident 
that  the  twelve  propositions  relating  to  the   doc- 


CJmrch   Ccnsttres,  etc.  259 

trinal  part  of  ordination  had  by  April  3d,  1644, 
been  put  into  the  exact  form  in  which  we  there 
have  them,  and  if  by  April  19th  the  directory  for 
ordination  was  not  yet  verbatim  et  litcrathn  as  wc 
now  have  it,  any  alterations  made  on  it  subse- 
quently must  have  been  of  the  most  trifling  kind. 
The  Committee  which  drew  up  the  first  draft  of 
this  Directory  were  Messrs.  Palmer,  Herlc, 
Marshall,  Tuckney,  Seaman,  Vines,  Goodwin, 
and  Gataker,  with  the  Scottish  commissioners, 
and  their  draft  was  completed^  between  the  3d 
and  the  19th  of  April,  on  which  day  it  was  dis- 
cussed, and  with  modifications  adopted  by  the  As- 
sembly. Next  morning  it  was  presented  to  the 
Houses,  Dr.  Burgess,  in  offering  it  to  the  House 
of  Lords,  saying,  "  That  these  were  the  first-fruits 
of  the  Assembly,  and  if  they  shall  receive  sanction 
and  confirmation  from  their  Lordships  it  will 
abundantly  recompense  for  the  long  time  they 
were  in  debate,  and  the  Assembly  recommends 
them  to  the  blessing  of  God  for  a  good  success 
upon  them."  At  first  the  action  of  the  Houses,  on 
what  had  been  presented  to  them,  was  far  from 
satisfactory  to  the  Assembly.^  They  struck  out, 
from  the  ordinance  they  proposed  to  pass  respect- 
ing  ordination  of  ministers,  all   reference   to  the 

1  Lightfoot's  Journal,  pp.  237-253. 

2  It  is  recorded  in  Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons,  vol.  iii. 
pp.  590,  591.      For  alterations  made  see  pp.  610,  622,  625. 


26o    Treatises  on   Church- Government^ 

doctrinal  part  of  ordination,  and  from  the  practical 
Directory,  all  reference  to  a  presbytery  as  the  ordi- 
nary ministers  of  ordination.  They  made  provi- 
sion for  the  special  emergency  that  had  occurred, 
only  by  a  temporary  and  extraordinary  association 
of  presbyters,  and  deferred  determining  the 
method  to  be  ordinarily  and  permanently  followed 
until  the  whole  question  of  church-government 
was  ripe  for  settlement.  They  also  proposed 
various  alterations  in  particular  regulations  re- 
commended by  the  Assembly.  This  fortunately 
came  to  the  knowledge  of  the  divines  before  the 
ordinance  had  actually  passed,  and  they  asked  and 
got  permission  to  make  further  suggestions  re- 
specting it.  The  adjustment  of  these  suggestions 
gave  occasion  to  considerable  debate  in  the 
Assembly,  and  to  expressions  of  disappointment 
on  the  part  of  several  divines  (notably  of  Hender- 
son), that  the  House  of  Commons  should  have 
taken  such  liberties  with  a  document  they  had  so 
carefully  drawn  up ;  and  after  paring  away  so 
much  that  was  deemed  important  by  its  framers 
— especially  as  to  the  doctrinal  part — should  have 
ventured  to  prefix  to  the  "  directory  part  "  a  preface 
of  their  own.  The  preface  as  ultimately  passed 
seems  harmless  enough,  but  though  negatively 
allowed  by  the  divines,  it  was  as  rigidly  excluded 
from  a  place  among  their  Propositions  and  in 
their  Directory  as  it  was  persistently  maintained 


Church   Caistcres,  etc.  261 

in  the  English  Ordinance,  as  printed  in  1644, 
modified  and  reprinted  in  1646,  and  merged  in  the 
larger  and  more  general  Ordinance  on  church- 
government  in  1648.'  At  first  the  divines  seemed 
disposed  to  content  themselves  with  urging  two 
amendments  to  the  ordinance  drafted  by  the 
Commons,  the  one  embodying  a  more  satisfactory 
definition  of  ordination  than  the  preamble  con- 
tained, and  the  other  restoring  the  clause  requiring 
an  express  promise  of  siibniission  on  the  part  of 
the  people  to  their  pastor.  Ultimately,  however, 
thirteen  suggestions  were  sent  up,  of  which  eleven 
were  accepted  by  the  House  of  Commons  without 
difficulty.  The  other  two — being  those  just  re- 
ferred to,  and  numbered  respectively  8  and  9 — 
were   after   further    consideration    accepted ;    the 

^  "  Whereas  the  word  presbyter,  that  is  to  say  elder,  and  the 
word  bishop  do  in  the  Scriptures  intend  and  signify  one  and  tlie 
same  function,  although  the  title  of  bishop  hath  been  by  corrupt 
custom  appropriated  to  one,  and  that  unto  him  ascribed,  and  by 
him  assumed,  as  in  other  things  so  in  the  matter  of  ordination,  that 
was  not  meet.  Which  ordination  notwithstanding  being  performed 
by  him,  a  presbyter,  joined  with  other  presbyters,  we  hold  for  sub- 
stance to  be  valid,  and  not  to  be  disclaimed  by  any  that  have  re- 
ceived it.  And  that  presbyters  so  ordained  being  lawfully  there- 
unto appointed  may  ordain  other  presbyters.  And  whereas  it  is 
also  manifest  by  the  word  of  God  that  no  man  ought  to  take  upon 
him  the  office  of  a  minister  until  he  be  lawfully  called  and  ordained 
thereunto;  and  that  the  work  of  ordination,  that  is  to  say,  an  out- 
ward solemn  setting  apnrt  of  persons  for  the  office  of  the  ministry 
in  the  Church  by  preachini^  presbyters,  is  an  ordinance  of  Christ, 
and  is  to  be  performed  with  all  due  care,  wisdom,  gravity,  and 
solemnity:    It  is  ordained,"  etc. 


262    Treatises  on   Church-Govejniment, 

first  partially,  the  second  entirely;  but  on  the 
dissent  of  the  House  of  Lords  from  the  latter  it 
was  in  the  end  rejected.  Instead  of  the  presiding 
minister  being  directed  immediately  before  the 
ordination  to  "  demand  of  the  people  concerning 
their  willingness  to  receive  and  acknowledge  the 
person  about  to  be  ordained  as  the  minister  of 
Christ,  and  to  obey  and  submit  nnto  him  as  having 
rule  over  them  in  the  Lord"  etc.,  he  was  simply 
authorized  after  the  ordination  **  to  exhort  and 
charge  the  people  in  the  name  of  God,  willingly  to 
receive  and  acknowledge  him  as  the  minister  of 
Christ,  and  to  maintain,  encourage,  and  assist  him 
in  all  the  parts  of  his  office."  As  the  objection  to 
their  suggestion  appears  to  have  proceeded  mainly 
from  the  House  of  Lords,  it  is  likely  that  it  arose 
quite  as  much  from  dislike  of  the  position  it  con- 
ceded to  the  people,  as  of  the  position  of  rule  it 
claimed  for  the  minister  once  accepted  by  them. 
And,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  though  the  clause 
requiring  the  people  to  declare  their  acceptance 
of  the  minister,  and  promise  submission  to  him, 
was  retained  in  the  Propositions  and  Directory  as 
published  in  1647,  and  was  countenanced  by  the 
Knoxian  Form  of  Admission  of  Ministers,  the 
practice  which  has  generally  prevailed  in  the 
Church  of  Scotland  ever  since  the  Revolution 
comes  nearer  to  that  authorized  by  the  Ordinance 
of  the  English  Parliament.     The  people's  accept- 


CJiurch   Censures,  etc.  26 


ance  and  promises  are  held  to  have  been  evinced 
by  the  signature  of  the  call  or  acquiescence  in  it, 
and  at  the  time  of  ordination  are  tacitly  assumed, 
and  after  the  minister-elect  has  been  ordained,  and 
counseled  as  to  his  duty,  they  are  exhorted  and 
charged  as  to  theirs. 

But  the  main  subject  of  difference  between  the 
Assembly  and  the  Houses  related  to  the  insertion 
of  a  satisfactory  definition  of  ordination  in  the 
preamble  of  the  ordinance.  The  original  draft 
had  borne  merely  that  ordination,  that  is,  an  out- 
ward solenm  setting  apart  of  persons  for  the  office 
of  the  ministry,  is  an  ordinance  of  Christ,  and  left 
out  the  explanation  contained  in  the  fourth  doc- 
trinal proposition  of  the  Assembly.  They  sug- 
gested that  the  ordinance  should  run  *'  that  ordi- 
nation by  preaching  presbyters  with  prayer  and 
imposition  of  hands  is  an  ordinance  of  Christ," 
but  they  ultimately  agreed  not  to  press  for  the 
insertion  of  the  words  "  with  prayer  and  imposi- 
tion of  hands,"  so  that  the  clause  might  stand, 
**  that  ordination  by  preaching  presbyters  is  an 
ordinance  of  Christ."  ^  This  modified  request  was 
substantially  granted  by  the  Houses,  but  it  was 
determined  by  them  that  the  words  "  by  preach- 
ing presbyters  "  should  come  in  not  in  the  first 
part  of  the  definition,  but  at  its  close,  to  complete 
the    explanation :    "  that   is,    an    outward   solemn 

^  Gillespie's  Notes,  p.  71. 


264     Tj^eatises  on   Church- Government, 

setting  apart  of  persons  for  the  office  of  the  min- 
istry in  the  Church."  ^  Some  further  additions 
were  afterward  made  to  the  ordinance  on  the 
suggestion  of  the  Assembly  which  may  possibly 
not  have  been  in  their  Directory  as  originally 
transmitted.  The  ordinance  retained  one  varia- 
tion from  the  draft  of  the  Assembly  which  is  de- 
serving of  notice.  It  had  been  determined  there 
by  a  majority  that  the  phrase  "  ivith  imposition 
of  hands  and  prayer"  should  be  changed  into  ''by 
imposition  of  hands,"  etc.  Selden,  Gataker,  and 
Seaman  all  pressed  this ;  but  Gillespie  contended 
that  **  it  neither  agreed  with  the  apostle's  phrase 
not  with  the  opinion  of  our  divines."  ^  Yet  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  where  Selden's  influence  was 
generally  greater  than  in  the  Assembly,  the  word 
by  was  left  out,  though  ivith  was  not  inserted,  but 
the  sentence  simply  ran,  "  shall  solemnly  set  him 
apart  to  the  office  and  work  of  the  ministry,  lay- 
ing their  hands  on  him." 

The  first  and  larger  part  of  the  propositions,  as 
already  stated,  was  only  presented  to  the  Houses  on 
8th  November  1644,  or  more  than  six  months  after 
the  part  which  now  stands  last  had  been  sent  up. 

The  propositions  concerning  church-govern- 
ment and  ordination,  as  put  into  shape  by  the 
divines  and  presented  to  the  English  Parliament, 

1  As  in  note  on  p.  261. 

'^  Gillespie's  Notes  of  Debates,  p.  45. 


Church   Censures,  etc.  265 

were  taken  down  to  Scotland  by  Gillespie  and 
Baillie,  and  along  with  the  Directory  for  Public 
worship,  they  were  presented  apparently  in  manu- 
script to  the  General  Assembly  which  met  in 
Edinburgh  in  February  1645.  Baillie  says  they 
were  to  have  the  Assembly's  opinion  upon  them, 
"  but  no  Act  till  they  had  passed  the  Houses  of 
the  English  Parliament."  ^  Of  course  he  means 
they  were  to  have  no  Executive  Act  such  as  they 
had  asked  and  got  for  the  Directory  for  Public 
Worship.  The  Assembly  passed,  and  the  Parlia- 
ment ratified,  an  Act  approving  of  the  Propositions 
so  far  as  submitted  to  them,  but  instead  of  de- 
cerninf^  and  ordainins;-,  as  in  the  other  case,  that 

fc>  o '  » 

they  should  be  observed  and  practiced,  it  simply 
authorized  their  Commission  to  conclude  a  uni- 
formity on  the  basis  of  them  as  soon  as  they 
should  be  ratified  without  substantial  alteration 
by  the  Parliament  of  England.  They  never  were 
so  ratified  in  the  South,  and  the  Act  of  the  Scot- 
tish General  Assembly  in  1647,  approving  and 
establishing  the  Confession  of  Faith,  speaks  of 
the  truth  of  Christ  as  to  the  several  sorts  of 
ecclesiastical  officers  and  assemblies  not  as  having 
been  embodied  in  the  Propositions  approved  in 
1645,  but  ''to  be  expressed  in  the  Directory  of 
Government."  ^ 

^  Letters  and  Jotirnah,  vol.  ii.  p.  260.    For  the  Act  see  Note  K. 
^  Peterkin's  Records  of  the  Kirk,  p.  475. 


266    Treatises  on   C/mrch- Government, 

The  circumstances  which  led  to  the  preparation 
of  this  latter  treatise  were  the  following :— The 
majority  of  the  English  Parliament,  while  willing 
to  substitute  a  Presbyterian  for  an  Episcopal  form 
of  government  in  the  National  Church,  were  not 
disposed  to  concede  the  apparent  jiu%'  divino 
claim  made  for  it  in  the  Propositions.  Even  many 
of  the  warm  friends  of  Presbytery  in  the  south 
became  satisfied  that  if  they  were  to  retain  the 
bulk  of  the  nation  in  the  reconstituted  Church 
they  must  be  content  to  get  their  assent  to  their 
favorite  system  of  church-government  as  one  that 
in  its  main  principles  was  lawful  and  agreeable  to 
the  Word  of  God  rather  than  expressly  enjoined 
in  it,  and  as  one  that  could  be  justified  by  con- 
siderations of  reason  or  expediency  in  many  of 
its  details  for  which  the  texts  appended  by  the 
Assembly  to  the  *'  Propositions  "  did  not  seem  to 
furnish  a  clear  divine  warrant,  still  less  a  positive 
and  permanent  institution.  At  the  desire  of  these 
friends  of  comprehension  and  their  friends  in  Par- 
liament generally,  who,  to  use  Coleman's  words, 
preferred  "  may  be  to  must  be,"  the  Assembly  set 
itself  to  prepare  its  practical  Directory  for  church- 
government  and  discipline,  and  for  ordination  of 
ministers,  during  the  latter  part  of  1644  and  the 
earlier  part  of  1645.  Henderson  took  a  special 
interest  in  the  preparation  of  this  Formulary,  and 
culled    its    materials,   in   part  at   least,   from   his 


CJiurcJi   Censures,  etc.  267 

treatise  on  the  Order  and  Government  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  in  part  from  the  disciphne 
of  the  French  and  Dutch  Protestant  Churches, 
modifying  and  toning  down  the  whole,  and  doing 
his  very  utmost  to  put  it  into  a  shape  that  might 
be  acquiesced  in,  or  borne  with,  by  those  whose 
personal  leanings  were  toward  other  polities.  Yet 
with  every  disposition  to  respect,  as  far  as  a 
loyal  Presbyterian  could,  the  scruples  of  the  dis- 
senting brethren,  and  inclination  to  yield  to  them 
in  minor  matters,  he  and  his  colleagues  found  it 
impossible  to  come  to  an  agreement  with  them  on 
the  basis  of  the  practical  Directory  any  more  than 
on  that  of  the  theoretical  "  Propositions."  ^  But 
though  it  entirely  failed  to  ward  off  the  threatened 
schism,  the  Directory  did  not  fail  to  secure  the 
favor  of  the  majority  of  the  Parliament,  and  with 
two  or  three  notable  exceptions,  to  which  I  shall 
advert  in  my  next  Lecture,  it  was  substantially 
embodied  in  the  ordinance  passed  by  the  Houses 
on  29th  August  1648,  and  published  under  the 
title,  TJlc  Form  of  CJmrcJi-Govcrnmcnt  to  be  used 
in    tlic    Church    of  England  and   Ireland.      This 

A  Even  the  ministers  and  elders  met  in  tlieir  provincial  assembly 
at  London,  in  November  1648,  venture  to  say:  "The  external 
government  and  discipline  of  Christ,  though  it  be  not  necessary  to 
the  being,  yet  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  the  well-being  of  a 
church.  .  .  .  Not  that  we  think  that  every  circumstance  in  church- 
government  is  set  down  precisely  in  the  word,  or  is  of  divine 
right  in  a  strict  sense." —  Vindication  of  the  Presbyterial  Govern- 
ment and  Ministry,  pp.  I -3. 


2  68    Treatises  on   Church- Government, 

Form  contains  minute  directions  for  the  choice  of 
elders,  the  erection  of  twelve  Presbyteries  and  a 
Synod  in  London,  and  more  general  directions 
for  the  choice  of  elders  and  the  erection  of  Presby- 
teries and  Synods  in  other  parts  of  the  kingdom. 
It  also  made  provision  for  the  meeting  of  a  Na- 
tional Assembly  when  summoned  by  Parliament, 
but  in  point  of  fact  such  an  Assembly  never  was 
summoned  to  meet.  The  classical  Presbyteries 
were  to  consist  of  one  minister  and  at  least  two 
elders  from  every  parish  within  the  bounds,  the 
provincial  synods  of  at  least  two  ministers  and 
four  elders  from  every  classis  within  the  province, 
and  the  National  Assembly  of  two  ministers  and 
four  elders  from  each  provincial  synod,  and  of  five 
learned  and  godly  persons  from  each  university  in 
the  kingdom.  These  various  courts  were  subor- 
dinated to  each  other  after  the  Presbyterian 
fashion,  that  so  appeals  might  be  made  from  the 
inferior  to  the  superior,  and  any  person  who 
deemed  himself  aggrieved  by  the  proceedings  of  a 
congregational  eldership  might  appeal  to  the 
classis,  from  that  to  the  provincial  synod,  and  from 
that  to  the  National  Assembly,  and  from  it  to  the 
Parliament.  This  last  provision  no  pleading  nor 
protestation  on  the  part  of  the  divines  could  pre- 
vail with  the  Houses  to  alter,  and  perhaps  that 
may  hav^e  been  one  reason  why  they  did  not  urge 
on     at   once   the    complete    organization    of    the 


Church   Censures,  etc.  269 

Church,  though  of  course  the  main  reason  was 
furnished  by  the  political  changes  that  so  soon 
took  place.  Presbyteries  and  a  synod  were  erected 
in  Lancashire^  by  separate  ordinances,  and  pres- 
byteries^ in  Somersetshire,  Shropshire,  and  Sur- 
rey by  other  ordinances.  Any  organization  at- 
tempted in  other  counties  was  rather  on  the  lines 
suggested  by  Baxter  for  the  county  of  Worcester 
than  on  the  lines  of  the  ordinances  of  Parliament.^ 
Any  associations  in  them  were  probably  com- 
posed of  ministers  only,  and  of  ministers  of  dif- 
ferent judgments  on  the  question  of  church-gov- 
ernment. It  was  on  the  7th  July  1645  that  the 
Assembly's  Directory  was  formally  delivered  to 
the  Houses  by  Mr.  Marshall  and  certain  other 
members.  The  following  is  the  entry  in  the  Jour- 
nals of  the  House  of  Commons  (vol.  iv.  p.  199), 
regarding  it : — 

"  The  House  being  informed  that  some  of  the  Assembly 
of  Divines  were  at  the  door,  they  were  called  in,  and  Mr. 
Marshall  acquainted  the  House,  That  whereas  the  House 
had  been  pleased,  at  several  times,  to  order  the  Assembly 
of  Divines  to  send  to  them  such  propositions  as  they  had 
finished;  which  they  had  done;  that  there  are  some  more 
which  needed  some  proofs  out  of  Scripture,  and  had  been 
under  debate  with  them  and  were  now  finished  :  They  had 
cast  their  votes  into  a  model  and  method  ;  and  now  the 

^  yoiirnals  of  House  of  Cotnmons,  vol.  iv.  p,  668  ;  vol.  v,  pp.  7,  23. 

2  E.  430,  No.  16;   E.  431,  No.  4.     Baxter's  Explication,  p.  21. 

^  There  were  isolated  classes  in  other  counties  in  Kent ;  see 
Minutes,  p.  536;  and  in  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire;  see 
Rushvvorth,  I't.  iv.  p.  1054. 


270    Treatises  on   CJmr eh- Government^ 

House  may  see  all  before  them.  They  have  left  out  the 
proofs,  both  of  Scripture  and  reason,  having  sent  them  in 
with  their  former  votes  ;  but  if  the  House  please  to  command 
the  Assembly  to  give  in  the  proofs,  they  are  ready  to  do  it. 
Some  of  these  votes  are  plainly  held  out  by  Scripture  ; 
others  have  reasons  agreeable  to  Scripture,  and  have  been 
alleged  :  And  such  as  have  the  light  of  nature  are  received 
and  practised  in  all  Reformed  Churches,  This  work, 
though  it  appeared  short,  yet  had  spent  much  time,  by 
reason  of  dissenting  judgments  ;  that,  if  possible,  they 
might  be  satisfied.  To  this  short  paper  of  additional  votes 
they  have  given  in  the  proofs  out  of  Scripture  ;  and  if  those 
proofs,  at  the  first  reading,  be  not  convictive,  in  regard  that 
God  hath  not  laid  down  the  points  of  church  disciphne  in 
such  clear  texts,  they  desire  they  may  not  be  laid  aside, 
but  that  the  House  will  command  them  to  give  in  the  proofs 
at  large." 

The  Directory  for  Church-Government  was 
brought  down  by  the  Scotch  Commissioners 
Gillespie  or  Baillie,  and  laid  before  the  Scottish 
Assembly  in  1647,  and  by  their  orders  it  was 
printed  (with  the  propositions  prefixed,  and  in  the 
exact  shape  in  which  it  had  passed  the  Westminster 
Assembly)  before  the  close  of  the  year,  that  it 
might  be  examined  and  reported  on  by  presby- 
teries. Next  year  the  consideration  of  the  reports 
was  again  deferred,  and  in  the  confusions  that 
followed  no  action  may  have  been  taken  respecting 
it.  Baillie  says  that  with  four  or  five  reservations 
it  would  have  been  approved  of  by  the  Assembly 
but  for  the  persistent  opposition  of  Caldervvood, 
who  objected  even  to  the  propositions  of  which 
the    Assembly    had     approved    in    1645.      Both 


Chtcrch   Censures,  etc.  271 

sanctioned  congregational  elderships  as  distinct 
courts,  whereas  he  maintained  they  were  nothing 
more  than  committees  of  Presbytery.  The  latter 
provided  that  the  provincial  synods  should  consist 
not  of  all  the  ministers  of  the  bounds,  but  of  a 
certain  number  of  ministers  and  elders  chosen  out 
of  each  presbytery,  and  that  the  National  Assembly 
should  consist  not  of  delegates  from  the  presby- 
teries, but  of  three  ministers  and  three  elders  from 
each  provincial  synod,  and  five  learned  and  godly 
persons  from  each  university.  To  all  these  pro- 
visions we  cannot  doubt  this  uncompromising 
defender  of  old  Scottish  arrangements  would  reso- 
lutely object,  particularly  to  the  last,^  which  had 
been  opposed,  but  unsuccessfully,  by  the  Scottish 
Commissioners  at  Westminster.  But  some  of  these 
provisions  are  not  unworthy  still  of  the  considera- 
tion of  the  larger  Presbyterian  Churches,  which 
feel  that  their  supreme  courts,  as  at  present  con- 
stituted, are  somewhat  unwieldy,  and  hardly  so 
well  adapted  as  they  might  be  for  the  transaction 
of  judicial  business.  And  if  ever  the  time  should 
come  when  they  should  feel  that  the  laity  ought 
to  be  more  directly  represented  than  they  yet  are 
by  idoneous  persons  as  well  as  by  elders,  it  may 

^  Letters  and  Journals,  vol.  iii.  pp.  1 1,  20,  21,  59.  "  A  full  and 
perfect  model  of  discipline,"  '*  a  very  excellent  and  profitable  piece, 
the  fourth  part  of  our  uniformitie  was  shufHed  by  throui^h  the 
pertinacious  opposition  of  Mr.  David  Caldervvood  and  two  or  three 
with  him." 


272    Treatises  on   Omrch- Government 

cheer  them  to  remember  that  the  Westminster 
Assembly,  notwithstanding  the  objections  of  our 
countrymen,  did  not  hesitate  to  put  on  record 
their  decision  that  "  synodical  assembhes  do  con- 
sist of  pastors,  teachers,  church  governors,  and 
other  fit  persons  (when  it  shall  be  deemed  expe- 
dient) where  they  have  a  lawful  calling  there- 
unto." 

The  Directory  was  reprinted  in  1690  in  a  neat 
little  volume  containing  also  Henderson's  treatise 
on  the  Government  and  Order  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland,  on  which  it  was  based.  Once  and  again 
the  treatise  was  reprinted  in  the  earlier  half  of 
the  succeeding  century.  It  holds  its  place  even  in 
a  collection  of  Confessions,  etc.,  published  in  1776. 
Use  was  unquestionably  made  of  it  in  drawing  up 
what  are  termed  the  Larger  Overtures  on  Dis- 
cipline, etc.,  printed  among  the  proceedings  of 
Assembly  1705,  and  the  Form  of  Process  approved 
by  Assembly  1707.  But  as  a  whole  it,  as  well  as 
the  Propositions,  was  left  unsanctioned  at  the  Revo- 
lution, and  it  is  not  now  nearly  so  well  known  as 
it  ought  to  be.  It  is  practical  and  comprehensive, 
a  storehouse  of  valuable  counsels  as  to  many  things 
in  government,  and  still  more  in  discipline,  not 
touched  on  in  the  propositions,  and  is  well  worthy 
of  being  studied  by  Presbyterian  ministers  still, 
who  wish  to  do  full  justice  to  the  system  of  gov- 
ernment the  Westminster  Assembly   sanctioned. 


Church   Ce7is7ireSy  etc.  273 

What  wiser  statement  of  church  principles  could 
be  desired  than  the  following  :  Where  the  number 
of  the  people  is  so  great  "  that  they  cannot  con- 
veniently meet  in  one  place,  it  is  expedient  that 
they  be  divided,  according  to  the  respective  bounds 
of  their  dwellings,  into  distinct  and  fixed  congre- 
gations, for  the  better  administration  of  such  ordi- 
nances as  belong  unto  them,  and  the  discharge  of 
the  mutual  duties,  wherein  all,  according  to  their 
several  places  and  callings,  are  to  labor  to  promote 
whatever  appertains  to  the  power  of  godliness  and 
credit  of  religion,  that  the  whole  land,  in  the  full 
extent  of  it,  may  become  the  kingdom  of  the  Lord 
and  of  His  Christ.  Parochial  congregations  in 
this  kingdom,  consisting  of  ministers  and  people 
who  profess  faith  in  Christ  and  obedience  unto 
Christ,  according  to  the  rules  of  faith  and  life 
taught  by  Him  and  His  Apostles,  and  join  together 
in  the  public  worship  of  hearing,  praying,  and 
administration  of  the  sacraments,  are  churches 
truly  constituted.  .  .  .  Communion  and  member- 
ship in  congregations  thus  constituted  ...  is  not 
unlawful.  And  to  refuse  or  renounce  membership 
and  church  communion  with  congregations  thus 
constituted,  as  unlawful  to  be  joined  with,  in  re- 
gard of  their  constitution,  is  not  warranted  by  the 
word  of  God.  .  .  .  Separation  from  a  church  thus 
constituted,  where  the  government  is  lawful,  upon 
an  opinion  that  it  is  unlawful,  and  that  therefore 

IS 


274    Treatises  on   Church- Government, 

all  the  godly  are  also  bound  to  separate  .  .  .  and 
to  join  themselves  to  another  church  of  another 
constitution  and  government,  is  not  warranted  by 
the  word  of  God,  but  contrary  to  it.  .  .  .  Nor  is 
it  lawful  for  any  member  of  a  parochial  congrega- 
tion, if  the  ordinances  be  there  administered  in 
purity,  to  go  and  seek  them  elsewhere  ordinarily." 
.  .  .  ''Although  the  truth  of  conversion  and  re- 
generation be  necessary  to  every  worthy  com- 
municant for  his  own  comfort  and  benefit,  yet 
those  only  are  to  be  by  the  eldership  excluded 
or  suspended  from  the  Lord's  table  who  are  found 
by  them  to  be  ignorant  or  scandalous."  "  Where 
there  are  many  ruling  officers  in  a  particular  con- 
gregation let  some  of  them  more  especially  attend 
the  inspection  of  one  part,  some  of  another,  as 
may  be  most  convenient ;  and  let  them  at  fit  times 
visit  the  several  families  for  their  spiritual  good." 
"These  elders  ought  to  be  such  as  are  men  of 
good  understanding  in  matters  of  religion,  sound 
in  the  faith,  prudent,  discreet,  grave,  and  of  un- 
blamable conversation."  "  The  deacons  must  be 
wise,  sober,  grave,  of  honest  report,  not  greedy  of 
filthy  lucre."  "  It  belongeth  unto  classical  pres- 
byteries to  consider,  to  debate,  and  to  resolve 
according  to  God's  word,  such  cases  of  conscience 
or  other  difficulties  in  doctrine  as  are  brought  unto 
them  out  of  their  association,  according  as  they 
shall  find  needful  for  the  good  of  the  churches  :  to 


CJiiirch   Censures,  etc.  275 

examine  and  censure  according  to  the  word  any 
erroneous  doctrines,  which  have  been  either  pub- 
licly or  privately  vented  within  their  association, 
to  the  corrupting  of  the  judgments  of  men,  and  to 
endeavor  the  reducing  of  recusants  or  any  others 
in  error  or  schism,  ...  to  dispense  censures  in 
cases  within  their  cognizance  .  .  .  yet  so  as  that 
no  minister  be  deposed  but  by  the  resolution  of  a 
synod  :  to  examine,  ordain,  and  admit  ministers 
for  the  congregations  respectively  therein  asso- 
ciated." "  The  provincial  and  national  assemblies 
are  to  have  the  same  power  in  all  points  of  gov- 
ernment and  censures  brought  before  them  within 
their  several  bounds  respectively  as  is  before  ex- 
pressed to  belong  to  classical  presbyteries  within 
their  several  associations." 

The  sum  of  all  may  be  given  in  the  words  of 
Henderson  in  that  treatise  on  ''  The  Government 
and  Order  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,"  from  which 
this  Directory  to  so  large  an  extent  is  taken  :  "  In 
the  authority  of  these  assemblies,  parochial,  pres- 
byterial,  provincial,  and  national,  and  in  the  sub- 
ordination of  the  lesser  unto  the  greater,  or  of 
the  more  particular  elderships  to  the  larger  and 
general  eldership,  doth  consist  the  order,  strength, 
and  steadfastness  of  the  Church  of  Scotland.  .  .  . 
Here  is  a  superiority  without  tyranny,  for  no  minis- 
ter hath  a  papal  or  monarchical  jurisdiction-  over 
his  own  flock,  far  less  over  other  pastors  and  over 


276    Treatises  07i  Church- Government^ 

the  congregations  of  a  large  diocese.  Here  there 
is  parity  without  confusion  and  disorder,  for  the 
pastors  are  in  order  before  the  elders,  and  the  elders 
before  the  deacons.  Every  particular  church  is 
subordinate  to  the  presbytery,  the  presbytery  to 
the  synod,  and  the  synod  to  the  national  assembly. 
One  pastor  also  hath  priority  of  esteem  before 
another  for  age,  for  zeal,  for  gifts,  for  his  good 
deservings  of  the  Church,  each  one  honoring  him 
whom  God  hath  honored,  and  as  he  beareth  the 
image  of  God,  which  was  to  be  seen  among  the 
Apostles  themselves.  But  none  hath  pre-eminence 
of  title  or  power  or  jurisdiction  above  others  ;  even 
as  in  nature  one  eye  hath  not  power  over  another, 
only  the  head  hath  power  over  all,  even  as  Christ 
over  his  Church.  .  .  .  And  lastly,  here  there  is  a 
subjection  without  slavery,  for  the  people  are  sub- 
ject to  the  pastors  and  assemblies,  yet  there  is  no 
assembly  wherein  every  particular  church  hath 
not  interest  and  power;  nor  is  there  anything 
done  but  they  are,  if  not  actually  yet  virtually, 
called  to  consent  unto  it."  Such  is  presbytery  in 
theory,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  in  practice  it 
should  not  approximate  to  the  ideal,  more  nearly 
than  some  recent  caricaturists  represent  it  to  have 
done,  save  that  we  who  are  intrusted  with  its 
administration,  not  excluding  these  caricaturists 
themselves,  still  come  far  short  of  what  we  ought  to 
be  as  men,  as  Christians,  and  as  the  descendants 


Church   Censures,  etc.  277 

of  such  noblc-hcartcd  Christians  ;  and  that  is  a 
shortcoming  that  would  mar  any  form  of  govern- 
ment which  God  has  instituted,  or  human  wisdom 
has  devised. 


LECTURE   IX. 

DEBATES  ON  THE  AUTONOMY  OF  THE  CHURCH,  THE 
SOLE  SUPREMACY  OF  ITS  DIVINE  HEAD,  AND  THE 
RIGHT  OF  ITS  OFFICE-BEARERS  UNDER  HIM  TO  GUARD 
ITS  PURITY  AND  ADMINISTER  ITS  DISCIPLINE  ;  QUE- 
RIES ONyV/j-  diviniuti  of  church-government. 

In  my  last  Lecture  I  gave  you  an  account  of 
the  Propositions  concerning  church-government 
and  ordination  of  ministers,  and  the  practical 
Directory  for  church-government,  church  censures, 
and  ordination  of  ministers,  in  which  the  Assembly 
embodied  the  results  of  those  sharp  and  tough 
debates  which  "  dragged  their  slow  length  along  " 
for  wellnigh  eighteen  months.  In  the  present 
lecture  I  propose  to  advert  to  controversies  which 
emerged  in  the  course  of  these  debates,  but  which 
were  afterward  brought  up  again  and  discussed 
more  exhaustively.  These  were  the  "  scabrous 
questions  "  (as  others  than  Baillie  and  the  West- 
minster Assembly  have  found  them)  of  the  auton- 
omy of  the  Church,  the  supremacy  of  its  Divine 
Head,  and  the  independence  of  its  officers  in  the 
administration  of  the  discipline  of  His  house, — 
questions  which  divided  the  friends  of  Reformation 
in  the  Assembly  and  in  the  Parliament  far  more 

278 


Debates  on  the  AiLtonomy  of  the  Chiweh.   279 

seriously  than  any  of  those  previously  discussed, 
and  the  differences  on  which  I  bcHeve  were  one 
main  cause  why  Presbyterianism  was  never  fully 
set  up  in  England. 

In  that  country,  perhaps  more  markedly  than 
in  any  other,  the  way  for  the  Reformation  of  the 
sixteenth  century  may  be  said  to  have  been 
prepared  by  the  civil  power  and  the  laity — by  the 
sovereign  and  his  great  council  or  parliament 
restraining  or  opposing  the  abuses  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical and  the  papal  powers.  Even  under  the 
Norman  and  Plantagenet  kings  the  contest  began 
to  be  waged,  though  at  times  with  very  indifferent 
success.  It  was  revived  under  Edward  I.,  and 
still  more  resolutely  under  his  grandson  Edward 
III.  As  the  Popes  were  then  residing  at  Avignon, 
and  generally  creatures  of  the  kings  of  France, 
with  whom  Edward  was  at  war,  the  nation  entered 
into  the  struggle  almost  as  heartily  as  it  had 
done  into  that  for  the  defense  of  its  Magna  Cliavta 
when  assailed  by  the  Pope.  Various  statutes 
for  the  restraint  of  abuses,  particularly  the  stat- 
utes of  Provisors  and  Praemunire,  were  enacted, 
or  re-enacted  in  more  stringent  form.  The 
former,  passed  in  135 1,  was  meant  to  restrain  the 
Pope  from  providing  to  benefices  as  they  became 
vacant,  or  before  they  became  vacant,  and  so 
taking  the  appointments  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
electors, — the   chapters   of   cathedrals   and    mon- 


28o  Debates  on  the 

asteries, — as  well  as  out  of  the  hands  of  the  king 
and  other  patrons.  This  abuse  had  become  much 
more  prevalent  since  the  papal  court  had  taken 
up  its  residence  at  Avignon,  and  endeavored  to 
supplement  in  this  way  the  revenues  of  its  digni- 
taries. The  abuse  was  more  keenly  felt  when  the 
papal  provisions  were,  as  they  then  often  were,  in 
favor  of  aliens  and  non-residents,  sometimes  in 
favor  of  natives  of  the  country  with  which  Edward 
was  at  war,  and  so  the  revenues  destined  to  en- 
able high  officials  suitably  to  discharge  their  func- 
tions, repair  churches,  and  exercise  hospitality, 
were  drained  from  the  kingdom  and  spent  abroad, 
A  further  check  was  given  to  papal  pretensions 
in  1353,  when  the  statute  of  Praemunire  was 
added,  to  make  that  of  Provisors  more  effectual. 
In  1365,  certain  arrears  of  the  tribute  imposed 
on  King  John,  when  he  put  his  kingdom  under 
the  Pope,  were  refused,  and  the  king  was  autho- 
rized to  resist  any  attempt  to  enforce  the  payment 
"  with  all  the  puissance  of  the  realm,"  Wyclif  is 
supposed  to  have  been  present  at  that  parliament, 
— by  Lechler  he  is  supposed  to  have  been  a 
member  of  it.  To  the  last  he  continued  to  urge 
the  civil  authorities  to  resist  the  pretensions  of 
the  Popes,  and  is  said  to  have  counselled  the 
parliament  of  Richard  II.  (which  re-enacted  the 
statutes  passed  in  the  reign  of  his  grandfatlier), 
that  in  the  state  of  impoverishment  to  which  the 


Aiitonoviy  of  tJic   Chta^ch,  etc.       281 

realm  was  then  reduced,  it  might  lawfully  with- 
hold from  the  Pope  other  sources  of  revenue 
which  he  had  enjoyed  from  more  ancient  times. 
The  earlier  kings  of  the  house  of  Lancaster,  who 
owed  their  advancement  to  the  throne  very  largely 
to  the  favor  and  influence  of  the  prelates,  not 
only  yielded  to  their  demands  for  increased 
powers  to  themselves,  but  withdrew  from  the 
contest  with  the  Popes,  and  allowed  the  statutes 
above  mentioned  practically  to  fall  into  abeyance. 
Still  these  remained  on  the  statute-book,  and 
supplied  the  vantage  ground  from  which  Henry 
VIII.  started  on  his  wayward  career,  and  was 
emboldened  first  to  supersede  Wolsey,  then  to 
strip  his  prelates  of  their  independent  or  qitasi 
independent  jurisdiction,  to  reduce  his  clergy  into 
subjection  to  his  will,  and  finally  to  abolish  the 
papal  supremacy  in  his  realm,  and  so  to  concen- 
trate ecclesiastical  as  well  as  temporal  supremacy 
within  his  dominions  in  the  imperial  crown. 
Probably  the  theory  was,  as  Hallam  and  other 
constitutionalists  contend,  that  this  power  was  in 
the  sovereign,  as  advised  by  his  great  council  or 
parliament,  and  that  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  civil 
regulations,  intended  permanently  to  bind  the 
subjects  of  the  realm,  should  have  the  assent  of 
their  representatives,  or  that  it  was  more  entirely 
conceded  to  him,  specially  on  account  of  his 
personal  qualities.     But  whatever  may  have  been 


282  Debates  on  the 

the  theory,  the  supremacy  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
both  under  Henry  VIII.  and  Edward  VI.,  and  again 
under  EHzabeth,  was  generally  claimed  as  the 
personal  prerogative  of  the  monarch,  with  which 
Parliament  had  no  right  to  intermeddle,  as  if  it 
belonged  to  the  crown  by  a  sort  of  right  divine 
not  only  to  judge  in  particular  causes,  but  also  to 
a  certain  extent  to  legislate,  or  without  the  consent 
of  Parliament  give  validity  to  any  ecclesiastical 
legislation  proposed  by  Convocation.  A  jus 
divinum  absoluttnn  was  claimed  for  the  sovereign 
in  matters  ecclesiastical  by  many  who  would  have 
scouted  any  similar  claim  in  matters  secular, 
and  of  course  this  jus  diviuuui  was  more  offen- 
sively asserted  by  many  of  those  who,  under  the 
early  Stuart  kings,  lent  themselves  to  uphold 
their  right  divine  more  widely,  and  to  justify  their 
absolute  and  arbitrary  procedure  in  matters  civil 
as  well  as  ecclesiastical.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
more  thorough  going  Puritans  who  were  opposed 
on  principle  to  the  absolute  power  and  arbitrary 
actings  of  the  sovereign  in  the  State,  were  led  on 
to  question  these  in  relation  to  the  Church.  Some 
of  their  leaders,  even  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth, 
contended  that  the  representatives  of  the  nation 
in  Parliament  assembled  should  have  a  voice  in 
framincf  or  sanctioning^  ecclesiastical  laws,  and 
pleaded  with  them  to  shield  them  from  the  queen 
and  her   ecclesiastical  conmiissioners.      At  most 


Atdonomy  of  the   Church,  etc.       28 


^ 


they  confined  the  supremacy  of  the  sovereign  to 
the  judging  of  ecclesiastical  causes  according  to 
the  laws  passed  by  Parliament,  sometimes  to  the 
judging  of  these  causes  only  in  the  last  resort,  and 
for  the  purpose  of  remedying  what  had  been  done 
amiss  by  the  proper  ecclesiastical  tribunals.  The 
spiritual  sentences  of  these  tribunals,  and  especially 
that  of  excommunication,  they  urged  should  not 
be  pronounced  by  any  lay  judge  or  deputy,  and 
they  desired  to  see  the  old  canon  law  superseded 
by  some  such  reformatio  Icgiim  as  had  been  de- 
signed under  Edward  VI.  Cartwright  has  been 
charged  with  expressing  himself  with  almost  papal 
arrogance  as  to  the  powers  of  the  Church,  His 
words  were  certainly  incautious  and  ill-chosen,  but 
they  do  not  seem  to  me  to  imply  more  than  that 
civil  rulers,  in  dealing  with  church  causes,  must  be 
guided  by  the  rules  laid  down  for  them  in  the 
word  of  God,  rather  than  by  the  rules  of  canon  or 
of  civil  law.  As  Dr.  Price  has  shown,  it  is  only 
by  separating  the  quotation^    adduced    from    its 

^  "  It  must  be  remembered  that  civil  magistrates  must  govern  it 
according  to  the  rules  prescribed  in  His  word  ;  and  that  as  they 
are  nourishers  so  they  be  servants  unto  the  Church  ;  and  as  they 
rule  in  the  Church,  so  they  must  remember  to  subject  themselves 
unto  the  Church,  to  submit  their  sceptres,  to  throw  down  their 
crowns  before  the  Church ;  yea,  as  the  prophet  speaketh,  to  lick 
the  dust  of  the  feet  of  the  Church."  Here  Hallam  and  others  end 
their  quotation,  whereas  they  ought  at  least  to  have  subjoined  the 
explanation  which  follows  :  '*  Wherein  I  mean  not  that  the  Church 
doth  either  wring  the  sceptres  out  of  princes'  hands,  or  taketh  their 
crowns  from  their  heads,  or  that  it  requireth  princes  to  lick  the  dust 


284  Debates  on  the 

context  that  it  can  be  brought  to  bear  the  inter- 
pretation some  have  put  on  it.  Other  leading 
Puritans  in  somewhat  later  times,  while  personally 
owning  the  supremacy  and  the  ecclesiastical  com- 
missioners who  executed  it,  did  not  conceal  their 
liking  for  a  simpler,  freer,  and  more  independent 
government  in  the  hands  of  the  ministers  and 
other  office-bearers  of  the  Church.  Even  the 
moderate  men,  invited  by  the  king  to  represent 
the  party  at  the  Hampton  Court  Conference,  ven- 
tured to  complain  of  various  abuses  of  the  so-called 
ecclesiastical  courts,  and  to  urge  the  reformation 
of  these  abuses.  Nor  did  they  find  the  king  pro- 
fessedly so  hostile  to  their  views  about  some  of 
these  abuses,  as  about  several  of  the  other  chz.i'iges 
they  asked  of  him. 

The  title  of  "  the  only  supreme  head  on  earth  of 
the  Church  of  England  "  ascribed  to  Henry  VIII., 
both  by  Convocation  and  Parliament,  and  retained 
by  his  son  Edward  VI.,  was  formally  abandoned 

of  her  feet  (as  the  Pope  under  this  pretence  hath  done),  but  I  mean 
as  the  prophet  meaneth,  that  whatsoever  magnificence  or  excellency 
or  pomp  is  either  in  them  or  in  their  estates  and  commonwealth, 
which  doth  not  agree  with  the  simplicity  of  the  Church,  that  they 
will  be  content  to  lay  down.  .  .  .  Otherwise  God  is  made  to  give 
place  to  men,  heaven  to  earth,  and  religion  is  made  (as  it  were)  a 
rule  of  Lesbia  to  be  applied  unto  any  estate  of  commonwealth 
whatsoever." — Cartwright's  Reply  to  IVhitgift,  p.  180.  In  short, 
he  means  very  much  what  the  Bohemians  meant  when  they  say  in 
their  Confession  that  magistrates  •'  coram  Agno  coronas  deponentes, 
una  cum  aliis  regibus  et  sacerdotibus  .  .  .  spontaneam  ipsi  prae- 
stent  obedientiam,  quo  etiam  Spiritus  Sanctus  ,  .  .  ipsos  adhor- 
tatur.     I'sal.  ii.  10,  11." 


Atito7i07ny  of  the   CJmrch,  etc.       285 

by  Elizabeth,  nor,  save  from  James  himself  and  one 
of  his  flatterers  at  the  Hampton  Court  Conference, 
do  we  hear  more  of  the  sovereign  being  a  nii.xta 
persona.  But  it  may  be  questioned  if  any  real 
limitation  of  the  supremacy  was  effected  thereby. 
The  Article  of  1553  was,  **  The  King  of  England  is 
supreme  head  in  earth  next  under  Christ  of  the 
Church  of  England  and  Ireland."  That  of  1563 
still  asserted  that  '*  The  Queen's  Majesty  hath  the 
chief  power  in  this  realm  of  England  and  other 
her  dominions,  unto  whom  the  chief  government 
of  all  estates  of  this  realm,  whether  they  be  ecclesi- 
astical or  civil,  in  all  causes  doth  appertain,  and  is 
not  nor  ought  to  be  subject  to  any  foreign  juris- 
diction." Had  the  words  in  italics  been  left  out, 
as  they  are  in  the  Queen's  injunctions,^  the  article 
would  almost  have  satisfied  the  more  advanced 
Puritans,  as  being  simply  a  denial  of  the  jurisdiction 
claimed  by  the  Pope.  But,  as  it  was,  they  desired 
to  see  more  excluded  from  the  sweep  of  the  su- 
premacy than  "  the  administration  of  the  word 
and  sacraments,"  expressly  mentioned  in  the  Ar- 
ticles of  1563,  as  not  claimed  for  the  sovereign. 
The  first  step  toward  this  may  be  said  to  have 
been  taken  by  Ussher  in  the  Irish  Articles,  in 
which  the  words  "  or  the  power  of  the  keys  "  were 
added  to  those  already  mentioned,  though  the  old 
statement  regarding  the  supremacy  was  still  re- 

^  Sparrow's  Collfition,  pp.  68,  82. 


286  Debates  on  the 

tained.  It  remained  for  the  Westminster  Assem- 
bly to  complete  the  work  by  leaving  out  this  last, 
and  adding  to  their  statement  of  what  the  sove- 
reign might  not  do  a  definite  statement  of  what  he 
might,  in  place  of  the  general  reference  to  the 
powers  exercised  by  godly  kings  under  the  Old 
Testament,  which  had  satisfied  the  framers  of 
several  of  the  earlier  Reformed  Confessions. 

The  course  of  matters  on  the  Continent,  at  least 
in  Lutheran  states,  was  somewhat  similar  to  what 
it  was  in  England.  Whatever  Luther  may  have 
originally  intended,  there  is  no  doubt  that  after 
the  Peasant  war  he  became  very  chary  of  encour- 
aging popular  government  in  any  way,  and  ulti- 
mately lodged  much  of  the  power  in  matters  ec- 
clesiastical, which  some  were  disposed  to  intrust  to 
the  people,  in  the  hands  of  the  magistrate,  either 
simply  in  virtue  of  his  civil  office,  or  as  being  the 
natural  representative  of  the  unorganized  Christian 
laity .^  Ere  long,  this  arrangement,  occasioned  by 
circumstances  or  necessity,  was  advocated  on 
grounds  of  reason  and  Scripture,  as  being  in  theory 
also  the  best  or  the  most  legitimate  one.  This  it 
was  even  outside  the  Lutheran  church  by  Thomas 
Erastus,  a  physician  and  Professor  of  Medicine  at 
Heidelberg.     In  a  treatise^  on  excommunication 

^  See  Schenkel's  article  Kirche\\\  Hertzog's  Real- Encyclopddie. 

^  Explicatio     gravissimiv    qitestionis    iitnivi   excommitnicatio 

mandato  nitatttr  divino  an  excoisiiata  sit  ab  hotninibus.     It  was 


Autonomy  of  the   CJmrcJi,  etc.       287 

he  maintained  that  the  pastoral  office  was  properly 
and  only  persuasive,  and  that  the  minister  had  not 
in  virtue  of  his  office  any  right  to  exercise  ecclesi- 
astical discipline,  or  to  refuse  admission  to  the 
most  sacred  ordinances  to  any  one  who  claimed  it. 
He  might  set  forth  the  character  and  qualifications 
of  worthy  communicants,  counsel,  warn,  and  en- 
treat those  he  deemed  unworthy,  but  might  not 
restrain  or  exclude  them.  That  and  all  other  dis- 
ciplinary and  coercive  acts  he  held  belonged  not 
properly  to  the  minister,  but  to  the  magistrate, 
in  virtue* of  his  office.  This  treatise  was  ably 
answered  by  Beza,'  whose  views  were  generally 
espoused  by  the  Reformed  Churches  on  the  Con- 
tinent as  well  as  by  the  more  advanced  of  the 
Puritans  in  England.  Many  of  the  laity,  however, 
who  sympathized  with  the  Puritans,  and  a  large 
number  of  the  members  of  the  Long  Parliament, 
were  strongly  prepossessed  in  favor  of  the  other 
view,  and  thought  that  the  freedom  of  the  laity 
from  clerical  oppression  was  bound  up  with  the 
maintenance  of  the  supremacy  of  the  civil  power, 
no  longer  represented  by  the  sovereign  alone,  but 
by  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  who  in  a  sense 
claimed  to  represent  the  yet  unorganized  Chris- 
tian laity  of  the  kingdom. 

written  in  1568,  but  only  published  in  1589,  after  his  death.  It 
was  translated  into  English  in  1659  and  again  in  1S44. 

^  Tradatus  da  vera  excovwmnicatione  et  Christiano  presbylerio. 
Londini,  1 590. 


288  Debates  on  the 

In  Scotland  the  course  of  matters  had  been  very 
different  from  what  it  was  in  England,  possibly 
before  the  Reformation,  certainly  from  and  after 
that  crisis  in  the  nation's  history.  Knox,  while 
referring  in  his  Confession  to  the  examples  of  the 
godly  kings  under  the  Old  Testament,  and  assert- 
ing in  theory  for  the  civil  authorities  extensive 
rights  in  the  purgation  and  conservation  of  re- 
ligion, yet  in  practice  confined  their  rights  within 
narrower  and  stricter  limits,  and  did  not  hesitate 
when  he  deemed  them  wrong  to  act  independ- 
ently of  them,  sometimes  even  requiring  them  to 
receive  the  message  of  Jesus  Christ  as  set  forth 
by  him,  and  to  regulate  their  procedure  in  accord- 
ance with  it.  From  the  first  the  General  Assem- 
bly claimed  to  meet,  when  occasion  required  it 
should  for  the  good  of  the  Church.  From  the  first  it 
claimed  and  exercised  large  powers  of  government 
and  discipline.  The  statutes  originally  passed 
were  no  doubt  more  general  than  those  which 
ultimately  ratified  its  jurisdiction,  but  they  were 
tolerably  explicit,  and  pointed  naturally  in  that 
direction  which  was  afterward  more  decidedly 
followed.  I  give  below  the  Act  of  1567,  and 
place  alongside  of  it  the  corresponding  Article 
and  Act  of  the  Elizabethan  Convocation  and 
Parliament : — 

"The  Queen's  Majesty  hath        "  Anent    the  jurisdictioun 
the  chief  power  in  this  realm     justlie    apperteining  to   the 


Autonomy  of  the  CJnn^ch,  etc.       289 


of  England  and  other  her 
dominions,  unto  whom  the 
chief  government  of  all 
estates  of  this  realm,  whether 
they  be  ecclesiastical  or  civil, 
in  all  causes  doth  appertain." 
"All  such  jurisdiction,  priv- 
ileges, superiorities,  and 
pre-eminences,  spiritual  and 
ecclesiastical,  as  by  any 
spiritual  or  ecclesiastical 
power  or  authority  have 
heretofore  been  or  may  law- 
fully be  exercised  or  used 
for  the  visitation  of  the 
ecclesiastical  state  and  per- 
sons, or  for  reformation  .  .  . 
of  the  same  and  of  all  manner 
errors,  heresies,  schisms, 
abuses,  offenses,  contempt 
and  enormities,  shall  for 
ever,  by  authority  of  this 
present  Parliament,  be  united 
and  annexed  to  the  imperial 
crown  of  this  realm." 


trew  Kirk  and  immaculat 
spous  of  Jesus  Christ  .  .  . 
the  king's  grace,  with  advice 
of  my  Lord  Regent  and 
three  estatis  of  this  present 
Parliament,  hes  declarit  and 
grantit  jurisdictioun  to  the 
said  Kirk  quhilk  consistis 
and  standis  in  preiching  of 
the  trew  word  of  Jesus  Christ, 
correctioun  of  maneris,  and 
administratioun  of  haly  sa- 
cramentis.  And  declaris  that 
thair  is  na  uther  face  of 
Kirk  nor  uther  face  of  re- 
ligioun,  than  is  presentlie  be 
the  favor  of  God  establisheit 
within  this  realme,  and  that 
thair  be  na  uther  jurisdic- 
tioun ecclesiasticall  acknow- 
ledgit  within  this  realme, 
uther  than  that  quhilk  is  and 
sal  be  within  the  same  Kirk, 
or  that  vvhilk  flowis  thairfra, 
concerning  the  premisses." 


The  import  of  the  Scotch  Act  is  as  clear  and  un- 
mistakable as  are  the  declarations  of  the  English 
Article  and  Act  to  the  opposite  effect.^     If  more 

^  Tliis  difference  was  asserted  by  those  who  pleaded  the  cause 
of  Scotland  in  1 640  with  tlieir  English  brethren.  "The  second 
error  ariseth  from  not  knowing  our  laws  and  so  measuring  us  with 
your  line.  It  is  surmised  to  us  that  our  enemies  oliject  that  we 
have  broken  our  civil  and  temporal  obedience,  and  trenched  upon 
the  King's  prerogative  in  Parliament,  by  offering  acts  prejudicial  to 
ills  Majesty's  power  such  as  anent  the  abrogating  all  civil  power 
from  bishops  and  churchmen,  and  rescinding  all  acts  formerly 
maile  in  their  favor  .  .  .  the  Act  anent  the  restitution  of 
presliyterics  to  their  rights  of  admission,  our  declaration  at  the 
19 


290  Debates  on  the 

were  needed  to  bring  out  the  contrast  the  sub- 
sequent history  abundantly  suppHes  it.  The 
attempt  was  actually  made  by  King  James  in 
1584,  to  secure  to  himself  by  statute  the  same 
powers  as  an  English  sovereign  exercised  in 
matters  ecclesiastical.  But  in  1592,  by  the  Act 
which  is  still  deemed  the  charter  of  the  Church, 
not  only  are  her  courts  and  their  jurisdiction 
ratified,  but  the  Act  of  1584,  authorizing  the 
appointment  by  the  crown  of  commissioners  in 
ecclesiastical  causes,  is  declared  null  and  of  no 
force  or  effect  in  time  to  come,  and  it  is  expressly 
provided  that  the  Act  of  the  same  year  author- 
izing- the  kingr  and  his  council  to  summon  all 
manner  of  persons  super  inqiiircndis,  shall  be  no 
way  prejudicial  **  nor  derogate  anything  to  the 
privilege  that  God  has  given  to  the  spiritual  office- 
bearers in  the  Kirk,  concerning  heads  of  religion, 
matters  of  heresy,  excommunication,  collation  or 
deprivation  of  ministers,  or  any  such  essential 
censures  specially  grounded  [on]  and  having  war- 
unexampled  raising  of  our  Parliament,  or  such  like.  We  neither 
know  nor  will  examine  if  according  to  your  laws  these  may  be 
accounted  derogatory  to  royal  authority.  But  it  i^;  most  sure  and 
evident  by  all  the  registers  and  records  of  our  laws  .  .  .  that  they 
properly  belong  to  the  cognition  of  our  Parliament,  and  that  we 
have  proceeded  at  this  time  upon  no  other  ground  than  our  laws 
and  practice  of  this  kingdom  never  before  questioned,  but  inviola- 
bly observed  as  the  only  rule  of  our  government." — Inforniadon 
frotn  the  Estates  of  the  kingdom  of  Scotland  to  the  kingdom  of 
England t  1640. 


Autonomy  of  the   Church,  etc.       291 

rant   of  the  Word   of  God."       Thus    the   power 
of  ^odly   kings,   according  to   Scottish    law  and 
teaching,   was    meant    to    be    not   privative    but 
cumulative   of  that   of  the    office-bearers   of  the 
Church.     It  is  only  by  ignoring  these  facts  and 
assuming  that  Scottish  law  was  similar  to   Eng- 
lish, that    some    modern    English   historians   can 
make   out   the    semblance    of  a   justification    for 
James  in  his  conflict  with  the  Mel vi lies  and  the 
party  in  the  Scottish  Church  of  which  they  were 
the  leaders.     Whatever  their  failings  and  short- 
comings, these  men  maintained  with  the  cause  of 
ecclesiastical   independence  that  of  constitutional 
liberty  and  limited  monarchy,  against  absolutism 
and  arbitrary  power,  just  as  truly  as  the  patriots 
of  the  Long  Parliament  and  the  Westminster  As- 
sembly did.     And  though  overborne  for  a  time 
after  the  accession  of  the  Stuarts  to  the  English 
throne,  their  views   had    been  re-asserted  not  in 
word  only  but  also  in  act.     The  whole  of  their 
second    Reformation    rested    on    the    re-assertion 
of  these  views,  and  the  restoration  to  their  place 
of  honor   in   the    statute-book   of  those   laws   in 
which    they  were    embodied.     From    the   appro- 
bation  of    their    proceedings    expressed    by    the 
patriots  of  the  South  they  were  led  perhaps  too 
readily  to  conclude  that  they  agreed  with  them  in 
their  principles,  or  that   it  would   be  easy  by  a 
little  more  argument,  and  closer  acquaintance,  to 


2g2  Debates  on  the 

bring  them  over  to  do  so.  They  did  not  make 
due  allowance  for  national  antecedents,  and  differ- 
ent standpoints,  and  holding  their  views  to  be 
bound  up  almost  with  the  esse  as  well  as  the  bene 
esse^  of  a  church,  they  urged  them  with  a  persist- 
ency and  fervor  which  seemed  overbearing  to 
many  of  their  lay  friends  in  England.  Yea,  if 
Baillie  has  not  done  them  injustice  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  they  had  recourse  at  times  to  petty 
arts  of  diplomacy  which,  however  they  might  have 
escaped  observation  or  censure  among  their  own 
countrymen,  could  hardly  fail  to  be  discovered 
and  resented  in  the  land  of  their  sojourn,  by  the 
acute  and  able  statesmen  with  whom  they  had  to 
deal,  and  so  immeasurably  to  increase  the  difficul- 
ties of  the  work  on  which  their  hearts  were  set. 
Baillie  restlessly  wrote  (vol.  ii.  pp.  179,  197,  252) 
to  friends  on  the  Continent  to  send  testimonies  or 
aro-uments  in  favor  of  the  Scottish  views  to  influ- 
ence  the  Assembly  and  the  Parliament,  and  sadly 
disappointed  the  good  man  was  when  the  testi- 
monies did  not  in  every  point  come  up  to  his  ex- 
pectations. He  busied  himself  also  in  organizing 
opposition  in  the  city  to  the  measures  of  the  Par- 
liament, and  was  still  more  sadly  disappointed 
when  this  piece  of  artillery  *'  played  nip-shot." " 

^  This  question  was  set  out  for  debate  in  the  Westminster  As- 
sembly, but  not  formally  decided  in  it.     See  Minutes,  p.  220. 
'^  Letters  and  Journals,  vol.  ii.  p.  362. 


Atttononiy  of  the   Church,  etc.       293 

Even  one  who  deems  the  House  of  Commons  mis- 
taken can  hardly  fail  to  admire  the  pkick  with 
which  they  stood  the  siege,  or  to  wonder  that  a 
man  so  shrewd  as  BaiUie  should  have  hoped  to 
overpower  them  by  such  arms,  or  to  avoid  raising 
against  his  countrymen  and  their  cause  the  indig- 
nation to  which  Milton  gave  voice  soon  after, 
with  all  the  more  scathing  bitterness  perhaps  be- 
cause of  his  personal  differences  with  them  and 
their  friends  on  the  question  of  divorce.^ 

But  while   regard  to  truth  requires  me  to  say 

1  "  But  we  do  hope  to  find  out  all  your  tricks, 

Your  plots  and  packing  worse  than  those  of  Trent, 

That  so  the  Parliament 
May  with  their  wholesome  and  preventive  shears. 
Clip  your  phylacteries  though  baulk  your  ears. 

And  succour  our  just  fears, 
When  they  shall  read  this  clearly  in  your  charge 
New  Pkesbytek  is  but  old  Pkiest  writ  large." 

The  "  Scotch  What  d'ye  call  "  of  the  Sonnet  Professor  Masson 
rightly  conjectures  to  be  Raillie  himself.  And  as  another  remarks 
the  name  of  the  sainted  Rutlierfurd  has  in  it  been  consigned 
to  posterity  rhyming  with  civil  sword.  Their  phylacteries  were  not 
broader  than  those  of  his  own  most  cherished  friends,  nor  their 
lives  less  truly  Christian.  The  coarse  charge  of  dallying  with  the 
widowed  "  plurality  "  is  even  more  spiteful.  They  were  the  first 
in  England  to  refuse  to  give  testimonials  to  ministers  seeking 
institution  to  more  than  one  parish.  Several  of  them  held  a 
benefice  in  connection  with  a  University  chair,  but  that  was  a 
union  of  orifices  allowed  in  the  Scottish,  French,  and  Dutch 
Churches  of  that  age,  who  allowed  no  plurality  of  parishes.  A 
number  driven  from  their  benefices  in  the  country  by  the  Cavaliers 
were,  to  preserve  them  from  starving,  admitted  for  a  time  to 
sequestrated  livings  and  lectureships  in  London,  but  as  the  country 
was  pacified  the  number  even  of  these  was  diminished,  and  more 
than  one  upbraided  with  this  fault  offered  to  resign  if  assured  of 
the  revenues  of  his  own  benefice. 


294  Debates  on  the 

thus  much  of  the  faihngs  of  my  honored  country- 
men, it  gives  me  unfeigned  satisfaction  to  be  able 
now  to  add  that  in  their  great  works  on  Church- 
government  pubhshed  about  the  same  time 
weapons  more  worthy  of  the  mighty  contest  were 
supphed  by  Rutherfurd  and  Gillespie/  and  that 
the  letters  and  counsels  sent  from  the  Continent 
in  answer  to  their  urgent  entreaties  were  not  the 
only,  nor  in  my  humble  opinion  the  most  memor- 
able of  those  then  addressed  to  the  Church  of 
England  to  encourage  and  counsel  it  in  the  work 
of  reformation.  I  have  adverted  to  one  remark- 
able treatise  already  (p.  ii6),  which  appeared 
before  the  Assembly  met,  and  was  not  altogether 
to  the  mind  of  the  Scotch,  though  in  this  matter 
of  the  power  of  the  keys  its  author  came  nearer  to 
their  views  than  to  those  of  the  English  Parliament.^ 

^  The  Dh'ine  Right  of  Church  Govemnient  and  Excoiiivitinica- 
tion,  by  Rutherfurd,  and  Aai-on^s  Rod  blossomings  or  the  Divine 
Ordinance  of  Church  Government  vindicated,  by  Gillespie,  both 
published  at  London  early  in  1646. 

■•^  "  Hoc  est,  ni  fallor  vera  sententia  de  potestate  et  ministris 
clavium  quani  probatam  cupimus  inclyto  Caetui  ut  deinceps  abrogate 
tribunali  quod  celsam  Commissionem  vocant  et  abusu  curiarum 
episcopalium  e  medio  sublato,  Synedria  Ecclesiastica  non  alias 
infligant  jxienas  quam  ecclesiasticas  .  .  .  Pastores  arceant  a  com- 
nnmione  peccantes,  quin  et  intentent  extremum  illud  fulmen  ex- 
conimunicationis,  ut  non  obedientes  censurce  .  .  .  coram  tribunali 
politico  sistant."  As  to  lesser  offenses  of  which  the  laws  of  the 
state  take  no  special  notice,  he  says  it  belongs  to  the  church  courts 
to  make  strict  inquiry  "  nee  quemquam  admittere  ad  sacrre  caenre 
synaxin,  qui  ea  procul  a  se  non  abjecerit  et  veniam  ex  penitentia 
non  impelraverit." — Consilititn  de  reformanda  ecclcsis  Anglicana. 


Aittonomy  of  the  Church,  etc.       295 

I  cannot  omit  to  mention  another,  which  though 
put  into  its  present  shape  at  a  later  date  to  help 
on  such  a  reformation  as  the  EngHsh  Puritans 
desired  in  1660,  yet  can  hardly  be  doubted  to  em- 
body views  which  its  author  held  and  expressed  at 
this  earlier  date.^  This  is  the  Parcencsis  ad  ccclesias, 
noininatim  Anglicanain,  de  optima  ccclcsiastici 
rcgiminis  forma  pie  solicitam  of  John  Amos 
Comenius,  a  bishop  of  the  church  of  the  Bohemian 
brethren,  and  the  only  one  then  remaining  of 
those  who  had  been  driven  out  from  their  native 
land  in  the  war  of  extermination  waged  against 
them,  in  consequence  of  their  election  of  the  son- 
in-law  of  James  I.  to  be  their  king.  He  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  in  England  in  the  autumn  of 
1642  or  spring  of  1643,  in  intimate  association 
not  with  the  Scotch,  but  with  Milton  and  their 
mutual  friend  Hartlieb.  Of  his  relations  with 
them,  and  his  literary  or  educational  activities,  a 
full  and  interesting  account  has  been  given  by  Pro- 
fessor Masson  in  his  life  of  Milton.  But  he  does 
not  advert  to  the  Bishop's  keen  interest  in  and 
thorough   acquaintance   with  the  various   phases 

^  The  Latin  letter  of  the  Assembly  was  certainly  sent  to  the 
Bohemian  and  Hungarian  as  well  as  to  the  nearer  Reformed 
Churches.  The  Ratio  Disciplines  Ordinisque  Ecclesiastici  in 
Unitate  Frafno/i  Bohcnionim,  to  which  in  1660  the  Pa7\€nesis 
was  appended,  was  certainly  also  published  in  1643.  A  co]iy  of 
that  earlier  edition  is  to  be  found  in  the  New  College  Library, 
Edinburgh. 


296  Debates  on  the 

of  the  movement  for  the  reform  of  the  EngHsh 
Church.  Bailhe,  I  think,  must  have  known  of 
these,  and  that  probably  was  the  reason  he  re- 
fused to  encourage  the  Bishop's  friend  Dury  to 
seek  admission  to  the  Assembly.  And  yet,  with 
all  his  divergences  from  the  wishes  of  the  Scotch 
and  his  leanings  toward  those  of  Ussher,  in  regard 
to  a  reformed  liturgy  and  combination  of  episco- 
pacy and  presbytery,  he  pronounces  decidedly 
against  the  whole  body  of  the  ceremonies,  and  in 
the  most  importunate  manner  pleads  for  the  res- 
toration of  the  key  of  discipline  as  well  as  that 
of  doctrine  to  the  ministers  of  the  Church.^ 

The  question  of  the  autonomy  of  the  Church 
came  up  first  in  the  Westminster  Assembly  when 
its  members  were  preparing  the  Propositions  con- 
cerning Church-government,  of  which  an  account 
was  given  in  my  last  Lecture,  and  it  was  then  that 
that  far-famed  single  combat  between  Selden  and 

^  He  quotes  Olevianus  and  Schlisselburgius  as  bearing  mournful 
testimony  to  the  sad  state  both  of  the  Reformed  and  Lutheran 
churches  in  Germany  through  want  of  discipline  and  the  intrusion 
of  the  civil  power  into  the  ecclesiastical  domain  :  "  Est  Csesareo- 
papatus  confusio  ecclesiastics  et  politicae  potestatis  qui  domini  poli- 
tici  .  ,  .  sub  prgetextu  custodise  utriusque  tabulae  rapiunt  sibigladium 
spiritualem,  ac  se  dominos  supra  ecclesiam  et  ministerium  con- 
stituunt."  This  was  as  resolutely  to  be  opposed  as  the  "  Papa- 
ccesareatus,"  the  assumption  of  civil  power  by  the  Pope.  It  was  to 
the  apostles  and  their  successors,  the  pastors  of  the  Church,  that  the 
Lord  had  said,  "  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the  earth."  "  Ergo  qui  his 
ecclesiasticam  disciplinam  manibus  excutiunt,  salem  eos  sine 
salsedine    esse  volunt>" — Fanrncsis,  p.  iii. 


Atitonomy  of  the   ChiLrch,  etc.       297 

Gillespie  ^  took  place  around  which  later  Scottish 
tradition  has  thrown  such  a  halo.  Nei^atively  the 
Propositions  are  against  any  human  headship,  or 
any  right  of  the  civil  magistrate  to  rule  in  Christ's 
house.  Positively  they  set  forth  Christ  as  the 
Head  of  the  Church  and  Head  over  all  things  to 
the  Church,  who  has  given  all  officers  necessary 
for  its  edification  and  the  perfecting  of  the  saints. 
These  officers  are  enumerated,  their  functions  de- 
scribed, and  their  power  of  rule  and  censure  as- 
serted. And  while  a  subordination  of  courts,  to 
whom  a  right  of  appeal  belongs,  is  maintained,  no 
mention  is  made  of  any  right  of  appeal  from  them 
to  the  civil  magistrate  or  to  Parliament.  There 
can  be  no  doubt,  therefore,  that  any  power  meant 
to  be  acknowledged  as  belonging  to  him,  or  it, 
must  have  been  regarded  as  extrinsic  not  intrinsic, 
l^io  not  laco  tyj::  ixxXr^dca::,  circa  sacra  not  /;/  sacris. 

^  The  manuscript  Minutes  coincide  with  Lightfoot's  Journal '\r\ 
assigning  Gillespie's  speech  not  the  session  of  20th  but  to  that 
of  2ist  Felnuary.  In  Gillespie's  own  Notes  it  is  introduced  at 
the  close  of  the  account  of  the  former  session  with  the  words,  "  I 
re|)ly,"  not  I  replied,  and  may  simply  embody  a  brief  outline  of  the 
reply  he  was  to  mnke  on  the  following  day.  The  reply  made  to 
Selden  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  was  that  of  Herle,  who  in  1646 
succeeded  Dr.  Twisse  as  Prolocutor,  and  judging  even  from  the 
fragmentary  jottings  preserved  by  Byfield,  one  cannot  doubt  that 
it  was  a  very  able  reply.  Gillespie  and  Young  appear  to  liave 
taken  the  evening  to  arrange  their  thoughts,  and  at  next  session 
made  very  telling  replies,  the  former  to  the  general  liiiC  of  argu- 
ment, the  latter  to  the  citations  from  rabbinical  and  patristic 
authorities. 


298  Debates  on  the 

When  these  Propositions  were  being  digested  into 
the  practical  Directory  for  Church-government,  it 
was  proposed  to  insert  a  proposition  describing 
the  authority  the  magistrate  might  claim  and  the 
duties  he  was  to  discharge  toward  the  Church : 
"  The  civil  magistrate  hath  authority,  and  it  is  his 
duty  to  provide  that  the  word  of  God  be  truly 
and  duly  preached,  the  sacraments  rightly  admin- 
istered, church-government  and  discipline  estab- 
lished, and  duly  executed  according  to  the  word 
of  God."  ^  But  after  debate  it  was  resolved  to 
waive  this  and  some  other  propositions  in  refer- 
ence to  the  discipline,  and  when  they  were  brought 
up  in  reference  to  the  Confession  of  Faith,  the 
above  was  no  longer  the  first  proposition,  nor 
even  the  first  part  of  the  third,  and  it  was  con- 
siderably changed  in  form.  But  the  autonomy 
of  the  Church  and  the  right  of  its  office-bearers 
to  the  power  of  the  keys  is  distinctly  implied 
throughout  that  Directory,  and  especially  in  all 
that  it  inculcates  as  to  the  powers  and  duties  of 
congregational  elderships,  classical  presbyteries, 
and  the  superior  Church  courts.  Before  that 
Directory  was  completed,  however,  the  Assembly 
deemed  it  their  duty  to  bring  under  the  notice 
of  the  Houses  the  great  importance  of  speedy 
order  being  taken  for  "  the  keeping  of  ignorant 
and    scandalous    persons    from    the    sacrament." 

1  Minutes  of  the  ]Vcst»nnster  Assanbly,  j^p.  So,  224. 


Aiitonouiy  of  tJic  Chiu^ch,  etc.       299 

Their  petition  has  not  been  engrossed  in  the 
Journals  of  either  House,  but  that  presented  four 
days  later  in  name  of  the  ministers  of  London 
has  been  preserved  in  the  Journals  of  the  House 
of  Lords,  and  as  it  was  no  doubt  very  similar,  I 
shall  insert  the  substance  of  it  in  a  note.^  The 
effect  of  the  petitions  was  such  that  the  House 
of  Lords  at  once  passed  and  sent  down  to  the 
Commons  an  ordinance  "  concerning  the  admis- 
sion of  persons  to  the  sacrament."  But  the  clause 
in  it  relating  to  the  keeping  away  of  the  ignorant 
and  scandalous  was  not  to  the  mind  of  the  Com- 
mons, and  instead  of  passing  it  in  terms  so  gene- 
ral, they  resolved  to  require  a  full  enumeration  of 
what  these  terms  were  meant  to  include,  and  to 

^  After  a  reference  to  the  great  things  the  Parhament  had  al- 
ready accomplislied,  and  the  expectation  of  greater  they  had  thus 
been  encouraged  to  cherish,  they  proceed  :  '•  Extreme  necessity 
doth  enforce  us,  with  sad  hearts,  to  present  to  your  deep  and  pious 
considerations  the  dangerous  and  unspeakable  mischiefs  which 
like  a  flood  break  in  upon  us,  and  swell  higher  and  higher  every 
day,  every  man  taking  liberty  to  do  what  is  right  in  his  own  eyes, 
because  no  ecclesiastical  discipline  or  government  at  all  is  yet  set- 
tled for  the  guarding  of  the  precious  ordinances  of  Christ,  especial- 
ly that  holy  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  from  profanation  and 
contempt,  whence  it  comes  to  pass  that  God  is  much  dishonored, 
the  tender  consciences  of  many,  both  ministers  and  people,  are 
offended,  multitudes  fall  away  into  several  and  strange  by-paths 
of  separation  .  .  .  the  ]iious  ministers  are  extremely  discouraged 
in  their  ministerial  employments,  [and]  many  that  have  formerly 
manifested  good  aifections,  being  much  wearied  with  long  expec- 
tation, do  daily  withdraw  both  from  the  Parliament,  their  orthodox 
ministers  and  from  one  anotlier."  Immanuel  Bourne  is  the  first 
who  siirns  in  name  of  the  London  ministers. 


300  Debates  on  the 

refer  it  to  the  Assembly  of  Divines  to  express  the 
particulars  of  that  ignorance  and  scandal,  for  which 
they  conceive  that  some  persons  ought  to  be  sus- 
pended from  the  Communion.  This  course,  if  not 
meant,  as  their  opponents  insinuated,  mainly  for 
purposes  of  obstruction,  was  at  least  inconsistent 
with  that  which  they  were  content  to  follow  in  the 
case  of  the  more  serious  censure  of  excommunica- 
tion, and  it  was  unfortunate  in  its  issue  for  them- 
selves even  more  than  for  the  Assembly.  The 
first  answers  to  the  reference  do  not  seem  to  have 
been  so  detailed  as  the  House  desired,  and  the 
matter  was  again  remitted  to  the  Assembly.  On 
their  representation  it  was  resolved  that  persons 
to  be  admitted  ought  to  have  a  competent  under- 
standing of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  of  the 
state  of  man  by  creation  and  by  his  fall,  of 
redemption  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  means  to 
apply  Christ  and  His  benefits,  of  the  necessity  of 
faith,  repentance,  and  a  godly  life,  of  the  nature 
and  use  of  the  sacraments,  and  of  the  condition  of 
man  after  this  .life;  and  it  was  once  more  remitted 
to  them  to  state  in  detail  "  what  they  think  to  be 
a  competent  knowledge  of  these  things."  This 
they  did  without  delay,  and  brought  up  on  1st 
April  that  terse  statement  which  on  the  17th  was 
substantially  passed  by  the  Houses  and  embodied 
in  their  subsequent  ordinance,  and  soon  after 
made  the  basis  of  various  catechisms  intended  to 


AtLtonomy  of  tJic   CJuirch,  etc.       301 

prepare  the  catechumens  for  the  Communion.  It 
is  worthy  of  more  attention  than  for  long  it  has 
received,  and  worthy  especially  of  the  attention  of 
those  who  think  some  simpler  statement  of  doc- 
trine is  needed  than  the  Assembly  have  supplied 
in  their  confession  and  catechisms,  and  I  have  ac- 
cordingly inserted  it  at  length  in  my  Catechisms 
of  ttic  Second  Refonnatioii,  pp.  151,  152.  During 
the  months  of  April  and  May  various  communi- 
cations passed  between  the  Assembly  and  the 
House  of  Commons  respecting  a  detailed  enume- 
ration of  scandalous  offenses,  but  the  new  model- 
ing of  the  army  and  other  pressing  business  aris- 
ing out  of  the  war  occupied  the  House  so  closely 
that  summer,  that  the  promised  ordinance  and 
regulations  for  suspension  of  the  scandalous  were 
left  in  abeyance.  Accordingly,  on  1st  August,  the 
Assembly  presented  to  them  a  second  and  more 
urgent  petition  on  the  subject.  The  same  petition 
was  on  the  4th  of  August  presented  to  the  House 
of  Lords,  and  fortunately  has  been  inserted  at 
length  in  their  Journals.  I  subjoin  it  in  slightly 
abridged  form  : 

After  a  brief  reference  to  their  former  petition,  they  ex- 
press their  deep  sense  of  the  burthen  of  the  arduous  and 
most  pressing  affairs  which  lay  on  the  Houses,  and  of  the 
fidelity,  zeal,  and  self-denial  they  had  shown  in  the  right 
ordering  of  them.  Yet  considering  how  God  had  honored 
them  above  all  other  Parhaments  since  the  first  reformation, 
in  putting  it  into  their  hearts  to  repair  His  house  and  bring 


302  Debates  on  tJie 

it  to  farther  perfection  than  at  the  first,  and  had  blessed 
them  with  tokens  of  His  favor,  they  venture  to  represent 
that  there  can  be  no  more  proper  way  of  showing  their 
gratitude  to  God,  nor  any  surer  way  to  preserve  His  favor, 
than  that  the  Houses  and  they  should  hasten  to  complete 
the  service  they  had  undertaken  for  His  church.  "When 
we  remember,"  they  say,  "that  as  formerly  in  times  of 
reformation  amongst  the  Jews  sometimes  the  godly  magis- 
trates encouraged  the  Priests  and  Levites  to  promote  the 
reformation  by  them  intended,  as  Hezekiah  and  Josiah  did, 
and  sometimes  the  Lord's  prophets  have  in  like  manner 
encouraged  the  godly  magistrates  unto  the  same  work,  as 
Haggai  and  Zechariah  did  ;  so  it  hath  been  your  often  pious 
care  to  call  upon  this  Assembly  to  hasten  the  work  of  the 
government  of  the  Church,  (when,  by  reason  of  great  diffi- 
culties, it  staid  longer  in  our  hands  than  was  expected  by 
others  or  by  ourselves  desired),  and  withal  you  have  been 
pleased  to  receive  with  much  favor  the  humble  desires  of 
this  Assembly,  when  out  of  the  conscience  of  our  duty  both 
to  God  and  you,  we  have  at  any  time  stirred  you  up  by 
putting  you  likewise  in  remembrance  of  the  same  great  and 
most  necessary  business."  "  We  are  by  these  considerations 
emboldened,  yea  even  constrained  with  so  much  the  more 
importunity,  to  renew  our  former  humble  petition  for  the 
keeping  of  all  scandalous  persons  from  this  sacrament,  and 
which  we  conceive,  as  in  all  the  former  respects,  very  neces- 
sary, most  reasonable  and  consonant  to  those  things,  which 
have  already  passed  the  judgment  and  vote  of  the  honor- 
able Houses  ;  for  if  any  scandalous  sins  deserve  abstention, 
then  likewise  all  other  scandalous  sins  do  lie  under  the  same 
demerit,  and  by  parity  of  reason  should  undergo  the  like 
censure.  And  this  is  certainly  most  conform  to  the  general 
practice  and  judgment  of  the  churches  of  God  both  ancient 
and  modern  ;  for  albeit  there  may  be,  amongst  learned  and 
pious  men,  difference  of  judgment  touching  the  particular 
kind  and  form  of  ecclesiastical  polity,  and  some  particular 
parts  and  officers  thereunto  belonging,  yet  in  this  one  point 
there  is  a  general  consent,  that  as  Christ  hath  ordained  a 
government  and  governors  in  His  church,  in  His  name  and 
according  to  His  will  to  order  the  same,  so  one  special  and 


Autonomy  of  the   CJmrcJi,  etc.       303 

principal  branch  of  that  government  is  to  seclude  from 
ecclesiastical  communion  such  as  shall  publicly  scandalize 
and  offend  the  Church  of  God,  that  thereby  being  ashamed 
and  humbled  they  may  be  brought  to  repentance  and  glorify 
God  in  the  day  of  visitation.  Nor  do  we  find  that  there 
hath  been  any  great  doubt  or  question  made  thereof  in  tlie 
Church,  until  Erastus,  a  physician,  who  by  his  profession 
may  be  supposed  to  have  had  better  skill  in  curing  tlic 
diseases  of  the  natural  than  the  scandals  of  the  ecclesiastical 
body,  did  move  the  controversy."  The  following  are  the 
reasons  they  assign  for  their  urgency  in  this  matter : — "As  the 
conscience  of  our  own  ministry,  and  desire  of  comfortable 
continuance  therein,  and  the  care  of  all  our  brethren  whose 
case  is  the  same,  and  who  from  many  parts  mind  us  of  our 
duty  in  their  behalf;  and  as  the  discharge  of  that  service  to 
which  we  are  by  your  authority  called  to  present  our  humble 
advice  in  matters  of  this  nature,  do  hereunto  oblige  us,  so 
also  the  bond  of  our  late  solemn  Covenant  engaging  us  to 
promote  the  reformation  of  our  church,  according  to  the 
Word  of  God  and  the  example  of  the  best  reformed 
churches,  (both  which  we  humbly  assume  to  be  with  us  in 
this  particular),  the  longing  desires  of  the  godly  to  have 
this  business  settled  .  .  .  the  great  danger  to  the  souls  of 
scandalous  communicants,  which  both  magistrates  and 
ministers  in  their  places  should  endeavor  to  prevent,  not 
only  in  some  but  in  all  scandals  ;  yea,  the  very  practice  of 
heathens  themselves  who  removed  profane  persons  from 
their  sacra  :  All  these  and  the  like  considerations,  not  with- 
out the  encouragement  of  these  honorable  Houses  in 
accepting  our  former  humble  desires  in  this  behalf,  have  at 
this  time  engaged  us  to  renew  our  earnest  petition  to  the 
same  effect." 

This  petition,  any  one  may  see  at  a  glance,  was 
the  production  not  of  ignorant  enthusiasts,  but  of 
intelligent  and  thoughtful  men,  who  could  reason 
forcibly  in  support  of  their  plea,  and  were  in  sober 
earnest  in  urging  it.  Some  would  have  had  it 
presented  by  the  Assembly  as  a  body,  the  more 


304  Debates  on  the 

to  mark  their  sense  of  its  importance.  But  this 
seemed  to  the  majority  to  be  too  strong  a  step, 
and  it  was  finally  intrusted  to  the  Committee, 
which  drew  it  up,  and  to  Mr.  Newcomen,  their 
Convener,  who  had  probably  had  most  to  do  in 
preparing  it.  One  solitary  member  at  least  had 
opposed  it,  and  in  his  thanksgiving  sermon  before 
the  Commons,  on  30th  July,  had  expounded  his 
views  to  more  willing  hearers  than  he  had  found  in 
the  Assembly.  This  was  Thomas  Coleman,  famed 
for  his  rabbinic  learning  and  debating  powers, 
who  had  been  driven  by  the  Cavaliers  from  his 
parish  in  Lincolnshire,  and  forced,  like  many  other 
ministers  on  the  parliamentary  side,  to  take  refuge 
in  London,  where  he  got  the  appointment  to  St. 
Peter's,  Cornhill,  one  of  the  sequestrated  benefices. 
He  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  Assembly,  and 
became,  even  more  decidedly  than  Lightfoot,  the 
champion  of  Erastianism  in  it.  He  specially 
opposed  the  clause  in  the  petition  "  of  F>astus 
his  learning,"  and  before  it  was  given  in  had  en- 
deavored to  prejudice  the  House  against  it  in  the 
sermon  he  preached  before  them.  On  the  day 
the  petition  was  presented  he  was  taken  to  task 
by  the  Assembly,  and  a  committee  was  appointed 
to  draw  up  a  written  representation  on  the  subject 
to  be  sent  to  the  House  of  Commons.  Apparently, 
before  the  report  was  finally  adopted,  an  oppor- 
tunity "  of  speaking  was  granted  to  Mr.  Coleman, 


Atttonomy  of  the   CJiurcJi,  etc.        305 

if  he  would  voluntarily  recant."  He  refused  to 
admit  much  of  what  had  been  reported  as  havini^ 
been  really  maintained  by  him.  As  to  that  which 
he  acknowledged  he  maintained,  it  was  his  judg- 
ment though  it  might  differ  from  that  of  the 
Assembly.  He  was  sorry  he  had  given  offence 
by  what  he  had  done  both  to  the  Assembly  and 
the  Scotch  Commissioners,  and  he  promised  that 
he  would  not  add  to  the  offence  by  printing  his 
sermon.  On  Monday,  when  the  Assembly  held 
its  next  meeting,  however,  he  requested  the  As- 
sembly either  to  relieve  him  from  his  promise  or 
"  to  take  order  for  the  occasion,"  and  he  protested 
that  it  be  considered  **  null  and  void."  He  printed 
his  sermon,  and  engaged  in  that  famous  con- 
troversy with  Gillespie,  respecting  its  views,  of 
which  Dr.  Hetherington  has  given  so  detailed  an 
account.  I  turn  rather  to  another  aspect  of  the 
contest.  The  conduct  of  Coleman,  in  preaching 
this  sermon  and  printing  it,  notwithstanding  the 
promise  he  had  given  not  to  do  so,  had  probably 
quite  as  much  to  do  with  the  further  action  of  the 
Assembly,  as  the  unfavorable  rumors  which 
reached  them  as  to  the  unsatisfactory  form  the 
ordinance  was  to  take.  A  committee  of  ten  of  the 
members,  assisted  by  the  Scotch  Commissioners, 
drev/  up  a  still  more  resolute,  yet  more  importunate 
petition,  which  was  duly  adopted  and  presented 
by  a  large  deputation,  on  8th  August,  to  the 
20 


3o6  Debates  07i  the 

House  of  Commons,  and  on  the  I2th  to  the  House 
of  "Lords,  in  whose  Journals  it  is  recorded  at 
length.  It  bears  the  signature  of  William  Twisse, 
Prolocutor,  and  may  be  taken  as  evidence  that  he 
was  still  able  occasionally  to  attend  the  meetings 
of  Assembly,  and  to  interest  himself  in  their  pro- 
ceedings. Mr.  White,  who  signed  it  as  assessor, 
and  presented  it  to  both  Houses,  made  a  brief  but 
hearty  speech  commending  it  to  their  earnest  con- 
sideration. It  asserts,  even  more  resolutely  than 
the  previous  one,  the  autonomy  of  the  Church, 
argues  the  case  with  still  deeper  feeling  of  the 
importance  of  the  issue,  and  pleads  more  impor- 
tunately for  a  speedy  and  favorable  settlement  of 
the  question.  No  nobler  paper  proceeded  from 
the  Assembly,  nor  could  Twisse  have  closed  his 
official  career  more  worthily  than  by  putting  his 
name  to  it.  At  the  risk  of  tediousness,  I  must 
quote  from  it  at  least  in  part.  After  reminding 
the  Houses  of  what  they  had  already  done  in  a 
matter  of  so  high  concern,  they  say : 

"Our  spirits  within  constrain  us  yet  further  humbly  to  be- 
seech you  in  this  particular ;  and  we  hope  it  will  not  seem 
grievous  unto  you,  if  in  conscience  of  that  duty,  which  we 
as  ministers,  and  more  especially  as  met  in  this  Assembly, 
owe  to  God,  to  His  Church,  and  to  yourselves,  we  are  yet 
again  humble  and  importunate  petitioners  in  this  thing  ; 
seeing  God  is  our  record,  and  we  hope  it  is  manifest  to 
your  consciences  that  herein  we  seek  not  ourselves,  or 
private  interests,  but  the  glory  of  God,  the  pure  administra- 
tion of  His  ordinances,  the  welfare  of  souls,  and  the  peace 


AiLtonomy  of  the  CJmrcJi,  etc.       307 

and  good  of  this  whole  nation.  .  .  .  We  should  not  use 
this  opportunity  did  we  not  firmly  believe  that  what  we 
have  desired  and  do  desire  herein  is  the  will  and  command 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  the  King  and  Lawgiver  in 
His  Church,  and  therefore  we  dare  not  but  in  His  name 
ask  it,  and  doubt  not  by  His  grace  to  obtain  it  of  the 
Honorable  Houses."  Were  it  not  that  they  cherished  such 
a  hope  their  hearts  would  fail  within  them,  "for  this  poor 
nation,"  and  therefore  as  watchmen  set  on  Zion's  walls, 
they  dared  not  hold  their  peace  especially  when  they 
called  to  mind  that  the  Honorable  Houses  had  been 
pleased  to  bind  themselves,  and  them,  and  the  nation,  in  a 
solemn  and  sacred  Covenant,  wherein  they  had  sworn  to 
endeavor  to  remove  and  reform  all  that  was  contrary  to 
sound  doctrine  and  the  power  of  godliness,  lest  they 
should  become  partakers  of  other  men's  sins,  and  be  in 
danger  to  receive  of  their  plagues.  "God,"  they  continue, 
"hath  greatly  strengthened  your  hands  against  Popery, 
Prelacy,  and  superstition,  and  for  the  rest  of  these 
roots  of  bitterness  which  we  have  covenanted  against, 
especially  schism  and  profaneness,  we  know  no  better  way 
of  providing  against  them  than  this  for  which  we  now 
petition  ;  which  we  are  confident  will  (through  the  blessing 
of  God)  be  the  happiest  means  of  heahng  the  present  and 
preventing  future  schisms,  by  removing  out  of  the  way  that 
which  hath  been  one  of  the  greatest  stumbling-blocks,  and 
by  reconciling  all  the  godly  in  the  kingdom,  and  will  give 
much  ease  and  satisfaction  to  weak  and  tender  consciences, 
and  which  will  give  the  greatest  check  to  profaneness  as 
sealing  conviction  upon  the  consciences  of  sinners  most 
powerfully  ;  for  it  is  not  to  be  imagined  that  our  denouncing 
the  terrors  of  the  Lord  against  wicked  and  profane  persons 
will  prevail  much  upon  their  hearts,  while  they  may  (even 
as  soon  as  they  have  heard  that  sermon)  come  and  receive 
the  sacrament,  and  therein,  as  they  think,  the  seal  of  grace 
and  salvation  to  themselves."  Then,  taking  up  the  charges 
and  insinuations  of  their  opponents,  they  boldly  yet  with  all 
deference  continue  :  "We  hope  we  shall  not  need  to  plead 
for  ourselves  that  the  power  of  keeping  away  scandalous 
and  unworthy  persons  fi  om  the  Lord's  table,  which  Jesus 


3o8  Debates  on  the 

Christ  hath  placed  in  the  ministers  and  elders  of  His 
churches  (the  free  and  peaceable  exercise  whereof  we 
humbly  desire  may  be  confirmed  unto  them  by  your 
sanction),  is  not  an  arbitrary  or  unlimited  power;  for  how 
can  that  power  be  called  arbitrary  which  is  not  according  to 
the  will  of  man  but  the  will  of  Christ  ?  or  how  can  it  be 
supposed  to  be  unlimited  which  is  circumscribed  and 
regulated  by  the  exactest  law — the  Word  of  God  ;  which 
law,  in  case  any  shall  transgress  and  abuse  this  power  to 
serve  their  lusts  instead  of  serving  Christ  in  the  exercise 
thereof,  we  have  advised  and  humbly  desire  that  superior 
Assemblies  may  be  established  amongst  us,  who  may  not 
only  relieve  the  injured,  but  censure  offenders  according  to 
their  demerit.  Nor  is  this  power  in  the  least  measure  (as  we 
humbly  conceive)  inconsistent  with  the  liberties  of  the  subject, 
it  being  exercised  wholly  and  solely  in  that  which  is  no  part 
of  civil  liberty — the  sacrament — which  certainly  none  can 
claim  as  he  is  a  free-born  subject  of  any  kingdom  or  state, 
but  as  he  is  visibly  a  member  of  the  Church  qualified 
according  to  the  rule  of  Christ.  Only  we  crave  leave  to 
entreat  you  to  consider  that  other  Christian  States,  which 
are  jealous  of  the  encroachments  of  an  arbitrary  power,  and 
very  tender  of  their  own  just  liberties,  have  granted  the  full 
exercise  of  the  power  of  censures  unto  the  elderships  of  their 
churches  ;  yea,  and  among  ourselves,  power  equivalent  to 
this  was  intrusted  to  every  single  minister  and  curate  in 
England  as  (in  our  humble  apprehensions)  appears  both  by 
the  injunctions  of  King  Edward  the  Sixth  and  by  the 
injunctions  and  articles  of  inquiry  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
princess  of  famous  memory,  and  by  the  late  Book  of 
Common  Prayer  and  rubric  before  the  sacrament  ;  nor  do 
we  at  present  call  to  mind  that  any  Christian  prince  or  State 
whose  heart  God  did  incline  to  seek  a  reformation,  as  you 
have  covenanted  to  do,  and  to  establish  a  government 
according  to  the  word,  did  ever  deny  this  power  unto  the 
presbyteries  in  their  dominions  ;  and  we  trust  God  loves  the 
Parliament  and  England  so  well  as  not  to  suffer  them  to  be 
the  first.  Yet  can  we  not  (lest  our  own  heart  should  smite 
us  as  not  having  done  our  duties  to  the  utmost),  but  con- 
tinue most  humbly  to  advise  and  pray  that  ministers  and 


Atitononiy  of  tJic   CJiurcJi,  etc.       309 

other  ciders  may  be  sufficiently  cnaVjled  to  keep  not  only 
some  but  all  such  as  are  justly  and  notoriously  scandalous 
from  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  ;  for  should  things 
be  so  ordered  (which  God  forbid)  that  any  wicked  and  scan- 
dalous persons  might  without  control  thrust  themselves  upon 
this  sacrament,  we  do  evidently  foresee  that  not  only  we,  but 
many  ofourgodly  brethren,  must  be  put  upon  this  hard  choice, 
either  to  forsake  our  stations  in  the  ministry,  which  would  be 
to  us  one  of  the  greatest  afflictions,  or  else  to  partake  in  other 
men'ssins,and  thereby  incur  the  danger  of  their  plagues;  and 
if  we  must  choose  one,  we  are  resolved,  and  we  trust  our  God 
will  help  us,  to  choose  affliction  rather  thafi  i?iiquityy 

No  more  memorable  petition  was  presented  even 
to  that  memorable  Parliament  than  that  we  have 
given  above,  so  faithful,  yet  respectful,  so  cogent 
in  argument,  yet  calm  in  tone,  so  importunate,  yet 
truly  dignified.  It  was  altogether  worthy  of  the 
occasion,  worthy  of  the  venerated  divines  whose 
official  signatures  it  bore,  and  worthy  of  the  great 
Assembly  which  all  but  unanimously  indorsed  it. 
If  aught  would  yet  have  availed  to  make  the 
Erastian  lawyers  and  over-zealous  sticklers  for 
the  rights  of  the  laity  pause  in  their  course,  this 
petition  ought  to  have  done  so.  But  so  wedded 
were  they  to  their  own  views,  and  so  careless  of 
consequences,  that  it  availed  not  even  to  defer  the 
issue.  On  19th  August  they  passed  and  published 
Directions  for  the  choice  of  Ruling  Elders,  and  on 
20th  October  Rules  and  Directions  concerning 
suspension  from  the  Lord's  Supper  in  cases  of 
ignorance  and  scandal,  but  with  such  haste  that 
on  the   22d  they  had  to  order  the  copies  which 


3IO  Debates  on  the 

had  been  printed  to  be  called  in  and  suppressed 
as  being  erroneously  printed.  The  deficiencies  of 
the  first  as  well  as  of  the  second  were  forcibly  set 
forth  in  one  of  the  petitions  from  the  City  min- 
isters, transmitted  through  the  Lord  Mayor  to  the 
Houses  on  20th  November.  These  did  not  alto- 
gether **  play  nip-shot,"  as  Baillie  has  it.  For  on 
20th  February  1645-6  four  resolutions,  and  on  26th 
two  more  supplementing  the  Directions  of  the 
19th  August  were  issued  by  the  Houses,  and  on 
14th  March  an  additional  ordinance  for  the  sus- 
pension of  the  scandalous,  not  only,  as  it  professes, 
correcting  errors  of  the  press  and  supplying  defects 
in  the  former  one,  but  changing  some  of  its  most 
important  and  what  ought  to  have  been  its  most 
carefully  considered  provisions — those,  namely,  by 
which  it  set  itself  in  opposition  to  the  Assembly, 
and  to  many  of  the  most  devoted  of  its  own  lay 
friends,  and  substituted,  instead  of  that  court  of 
Ecclesiastical  Commission  which  it  had  abolished, 
commissioners  of  its  own  number  to  give  directions 
to  the  elderships  in  cases  not  enumerated,  and  to 
receive  and  determine  appeals  from  them.  The 
ordinance  of  the  20th  October  had  appointed  only 
one  body  of  commissioners,  and  these  the  members 
of  both  Houses  that  then  were  members  of  the 
Assembly,  and  apparently  rather  with  the  view 
that  they  should  prepare  matters  for  the  Parlia- 
ment than  themselves  decide  them.    The  ordinance 


Aidonomy  of  the   Church,  etc.       3 1 1 

of  14th  March,  besides  correcting  a  number  of 
the  defects  in  the  former  one  pointed  out  in  the 
London  petition  above  referred  to,  substituted  for 
the  single  body  of  commissioners  formerly  named, 
a  body  of  commissioners  in  every  province  to 
be  appointed  by  Parhament,  who  apparently  were, 
in  cases  of  discipline,  virtually  to  supersede  the 
synod  of  the  province.  It  had  been  attempted 
in  the  first  ordinance  to  give  a  sort  of  quasi 
ecclesiastical  character  to  the  commissioners,  by 
confining  them  to  the  members  of  the  Houses 
who  were  members  of  the  Assembly.  In  the  sec- 
ond the  same  end  was  sought  to  be  attained  by 
requiring  in  them  all  the  qualifications  required 
of  ruling  elders,  viz.,  that  they  "  be  men  of  good 
understanding  in  matters  of  religion,  sound  in  the 
faith,  prudent,  discreet,  grave,  and  of  unblamable 
conversation,  and  such  as  do  usually  receive  the 
sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  as  members  of  a 
presbyterial  congregation."  This  was  the  last  drop 
of  wormwood  in  Baillie's  cup.  **  They  have  passed 
an  ordinance,"  he  mournfully  writes  to  Dickson  in 
Scotland,  "  not  only  for  appeals  from  the  General 
Assembly  to  the  Parliament,  for  two  ruling  elders 
to  one  minister  in  every  church  meeting,  for  no 
censure  except  in  such  particular  offenses  as  they 
have  enumerated ;  but  also,  which  vexes  us  most, 
and  against  which  we  have  been  laboring  this 
month  bygone,  a  court  of  civil  commissioners  in 


312  Debates  on  the 

every  county,  to  whom  the  congregational  elder- 
ships must  bring  all  cases  not  enumerated,  to  be 
reported  by  them  with  their  judgment  to  the 
Parliament  or  their  committee."  Hard  had  the 
good  man  labored,  wire  pulling  and  letter  writing, 
if  haply  the  House  of  Lords  might  be  persuaded 
*'  to  scrape  out  all  that  concerns  the  commission- 
ers of  shires,  and  put  in  their  room  the  classical 
presbyteries  to  be  reporters  to  the  Parliament  of 
all  not  enumerated  cases  of  scandals."  But  though 
Manchester  the  speaker  resolutely  opposed  the 
obnoxious  clause,  the  House  by  a  majority  of  one 
decided  to  pass  it.  This  troubled  him  and  his 
friends  exceedingly,  but  how  to  help  it  they 
"  could  not  well  tell."  They  were  perplexed,  yet 
not  in  despair.  The  Sectaries,  the  lawyers,  and 
the  Erastians  had  combined  against  them.  They, 
the  Assembly  and  the  City,  would  make  yet  one 
more  united  effort  to  preserve  their  darling  pres- 
bytery from  the  threatened  discredit.  The  As- 
sembly seems  to  have  led  the  way,  and  their  peti- 
tion and  remonstrance  alone  has  found  a  place  in 
the  Journals  of  the  Houses.  On  20th  March  Mr. 
Marshall  directed  the  attention  of  the  Assembly 
to  the  recent  ordinance  which  the  Houses  had 
passed  after  long  and  serious  debate,  and  which 
they  who  had  had  the  honor  of  tendering  their  ad- 
vice would  be  expected  to  go  before  others  in  help- 
ing to  put  in  practice.     While  he  blessed  God  for 


Autonomy  of  the   Church,  etc. 


o^  j 


the  zeal  shown  by  the  Houses  in  endeavoring  to 
settle  the  government  of  the  Church,  yet  he  felt 
there  were  some  things  in  the  ordinance  which 
lay  heavily  on  his  own  conscience  and  the  con- 
sciences of  many  of  his  brethren,  and  he  urged 
the  Assembly  seriously  to  consider  whether  any- 
thing further  could  be  done  to  set  them  right. 
After  Mr.  Vines  and  Mr.  Seaman  had  briefly  ex- 
pressed their  concurrence  in  his  views,  he  and 
they  and  Mr.  Newcomen,  the  convener  of  the 
former  committee,  were  appointed  to  consider 
what  in  point  of  conscience  might  warrant  their 
making  once  more  their  humble  address  to  the 
Houses.  The  same  day  their  report  was  pre- 
sented, and  with  a  few  alterations  approved  of. 
The  petition  is  a  brief  but  pithy  recapitulation  of 
their  former  arguments  and  remonstrances. 
While  thanking  God  for  the  many  blessings  he 
had  made  this  Parliament  his  instruments  to  con- 
vey unto  these  poor  kingdoms,  and  professing 
themselves  thereby  the  more  obliged  to  show  all 
readiness  to  carry  out  their  wishes  so  far  as  con- 
science permitted,  yet,  out  of  a  sense  of  their  duty 
to  God,  to  the  Parliament,  and  to  the  souls  of  the 
rest  of  their  brethren,  they  felt  constrained  to  rep- 
resent in  all  humility  and  faithfulness  that  there 
was  still  a  great  defect  in  the  enumeration  of  scan- 
dalous sins,  and  that  the  provision  of  commission- 
ers to  judge  of  scandals  not  enumerated  appeared 


314  Debates  on  the 

to  tlicm  so  contrary  to  the  way  of  government 
which  Christ  had  appointed  in  His  Church,  that 
they  dared  not  practice  according  to  that  provision, 
nor,  considering  the  trust  reposed  in  them,  alto- 
gether hold  their  peace  at  this  time.  Therefore 
they  humbly  pray  that  the  several  elderships  may 
"  be  sufficiently  enabled  to  keep  back  all  such  as 
are  notoriously  scandalous  from  the  sacrament  of 
the  Lord's  Supper,"  affirming  that  it  expressly 
belonged  to  them  by  divine  right  and  by  the  will 
and  appointment  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  by  the  help 
of  superior  Assemblies  all  inconveniences  feared 
from  maladministration  may  be  prevented,  and 
the  magistrate  "  to  whom,"  they  say,  "  we  profess 
the  Church  to  be  accountable  for  their  proceedings 
in  all  their  elderships  and  church  assemblies,  and 
punishable  by  him  with  civil  censures  for  their 
miscarriages,  may  be  so  abundantly  satisfied  of 
the  equity  thereof,"  that  they  trust  his  heart  will 
be  moved  by  God  to  strengthen  the  hands  of 
church  officers  in  their  duties,  and  even  to  com- 
mand them  to  act  zealously  and  faithfully  in  them. 
On  Monday  morning  the  Assembly  in  a  body 
carried  up  the  petition,  which  was  presented  by 
Mr.  Marshall.^  The  House  of  Commons  did  not 
take  it  in  good  part,  and   after  it  had  in  various 

1  The  petition  is  reprinted  in  full  in  Minutes  of  IVesttninster 
Asscj)ibly,Yi^.  209,  210,  211.  The  remonstrances  of  the  Scotch 
to  the  same  effect  and  the  surreptitious  publication  of  their  papers 
added  greatly  to  the  irritation  of  the  Commons. 


Aittonomy  of  the   CJiiircJi,  etc.       3 1 5 

sessions  been  discussed  in  grand  committee  and  in 
the  House,  it  was  on  i  ith  April  resolved  by  88  to 
76  that  the  petition  presented  by  the  Assembly  of 
Divines  was  a  breach  of  the  privilege  of  Parlia- 
ment. A  committee,  of  which  Selden  was  a  mem- 
ber, was  appointed  to  state  the  particulars  of  the 
breach  of  privilege,  and  to  draw  up  certain  queries 
to  be  put  to  the  Divines  regarding  they/^j  diviutnn 
of  church-government.  The  statement  was  ap- 
proved by  the  House  on  the  21st,  and  the  queries 
on  the  22d  April,  and  a  small  committee  was  ap- 
pointed to  communicate  "  in  a  fair  manner"  to  the 
Assembly  the  vote  of  the  House  as  to  the  breach 
of  privilege,  to  enlarge  on  the  several  heads  of  the 
statement  above  mentioned,  and  to  deliver  the 
queries. 

Seldom  has  the  House  of  Commons  put  itself 
into  a  less  dignified  position  than  it  did  on  this 
occasion.  Willing  to  wound,  yet  afraid  to  strike, 
deliberately  ignoring  the  other  House  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  the  large  minority  of  its  own  members 
who  were  averse  to  its  policy,  it  rushed  into  a 
conflict  in  which  success  could  bring  it  no  glory, 
and  failure  must  bring  certain  discredit  or  dis- 
honor. The  sympathies  of  religious  people — of 
all  but  the  most  splenetic  of  those  who  usually 
opposed  them — could  not  fail  to  be  drawn  forth 
toward  the  men  who,  under  constraint  of  conscience, 
had  stated  in  so  calm  and  respectful  terms  their 


3i6  Debates  on  tJie 

inability  to  act  on  the  conditions  which  by  a  nar- 
row majority  had  been  fixed,  and  their  determina- 
tion to  suffer  rather  than  to  be  instrumental  in 
carrying  out  w^hat  they  believed  to  be  wrong.  If 
the  thing  itself  was  a  mistake,  the  manner  in  which 
it  was  performed  was  far  more  decidedly  so.  It 
was  not  worthy  of  an  English  House  of  Commons 
in  such  a  case  to  send  delegates  to  say  by  word  of 
mouth  what  themselves  had  not  ventured  to  put 
on  record.  If  their  own  isolated  position  and  the 
general  respect  for  the  Assembly  restrained  them 
from  dealing  with  the  alleged  offense,  as  breach 
of  privilege  should  have  been  dealt  with,  it  should 
have  restrained  their  deputies  from  representing 
it  as  even  of  a  graver  character  than  the  House 
in  its  statement  had  ventured  to  assert,  and  as 
having  made  them  liable  to  the  penalty  of  a 
prcBiminirc. 

It  was  not  till  the  30th  April  that  the  deputies 
of  the  House  of  Commons  appeared  in  the  Assem- 
bly to  fulfill  their  mission,  and  if  one  may  judge 
of  the  tenor  of  their  addresses  from  the  fragment- 
ary notes  of  their  speeches  jotted  down  by  the 
scribe  of  the  Assembly,  and  from  the  references 
made  to  them  in  the  memorable  speech  delivered 
by  Johnston  of  Warriston  on  the  following  day, 
he  can  hardly  avoid  coming  to  the  conclusion  that 
they  displayed  more  annoyance  and  irritation  than 
became  so  grave  an  occasion,  and  the  whole  action 


Autonomy  of  the  CJmrch,  etc.       3 1 7 

less  forethought  and  caution  than  might  have  been 
expected  from  men  so  well  versed  in  the  manage- 
ment of  affairs.  Sir  John  Evelyn  spoke  first,  and 
apparently  with  most  temper.  After  enlarging  on 
the  offense  which  the  contents  of  their  petition 
had  given,  and  stating  how  it  might  warrantably 
have  been  dealt  with  had  it  come  from  any  other 
quarter,  he  passed  on  to  speak  of  the  queries 
which,  he  hints,  they  had  heard  it  said  were  sent 
to  retard  the  settlement  of  church-government. 
Tliat,  he  assured  them,  was  not  their  object  in 
sending  them.  The  matters  to  which  they  related 
were  worthy  of  serious  consideration,  and  the 
opinions  of  the  Assembly  would  be  received  by 
the  House  with  due  respect.  But  in  coming  to 
a  decision  they  must  be  allowed  the  freedom  of 
their  reason,  and  liberty  of  judgment.  "The 
House  of  Commons,"  he  continued,  "  is  very 
sensible  of  the  faithful  and  useful  endeavors  of 
yourselves,  and,  though  they  had  not  been  so 
often  reminded  of  it,  they  would  not  have  forgot- 
ten it."  In  conclusion  he  seems  to  have  expressed 
a  hope  that  these  services  were  not  now  to  be  dis- 
continued, or  a  breach  made  between  them,  and 
warned  them  that  if  there  should,  they  would  give 
occasion  to  all  the  world  to  say  that  as  they  had 
been  willing  to  serve  the  Parliament  for  a  while, 
so  they  wished  the  Parliament  to  serve  them  for 
ever   after.     The    Parliament  were   not  unwilling 


3i8  Debates  on  the 

to  submit  their  necks  to  the  yoke  of  Christ,  for 
that  was  an  easy  yoke,  and  what  proved  to  be 
a  galhng  yoke  was  none  of  His.  Mr.  Fiennes, 
who  made  the  next  and  what  was  probably  in- 
tended to  be  the  principal  speech,  showed  more 
tact,  while  he  expressed  himself  with  no  less 
decision.  This  address  has  been  more  fully 
recorded  by  the  scribe,  and  I  can  find  room  for 
only  a  single  extract.  "  If  an  Assembly,"  he 
says,  "  so  soon  as  a  law  is  made,  set  a  brand 
upon  it  as  contrary  to  the  will  of  God  and 
mind  of  Jesus  Christ  and  our  Covenant,  what 
can  more  stifle  it  in  the  birth,  and  make  it 
of  none  effect?  Can  any  man  call  that  to  be 
advice,  and  not  rather  a  controlling  and  con- 
tradiction of  what  was  already  done?  Did  the 
Houses  of  Parliament  give  any  color  of  power  to 
this  Assembly  to  give  any  interpretation  of  the 
national  Covenant,  especially  in  relation  to  the 
making  of  laws?  Not  a  particular  member  may 
speak  against  a  vote  without  leave,  and  shall  [you 
claim]  not  only  to  debate,  but  to  arraign  and  con- 
demn it,  nay,  to  pass  the  highest  doom  upon  it, 
that  it  is  contrary  to  the  will  of  God  and  the 
national  Covenant  .  .  .  For  any  without  authority 
to  interpose  their  advice  is  to  encroach  upon  that 
which  is  proper  to  the  great  council  of  the  king- 
dom. How  much  more  to  set  up  judgment  against 
judgment,  altarc  contra  altare,  tie  them   up  to  a 


Autono7ny  of  the  Chitrch,  etc.       3 1 9 

particular  sense,  and  that  under  pain  of  brcakin^^ 
God's  law  and  incurring  the  censure  of  breach 
of  Covenant."  Then,  forgetting  that  what  the 
Assembly  had  done  was  known  only  to  them- 
selves and  the  Houses,  he  proceeds :  "  To  arm 
the  hands  of  the  subjects  against  the  authority 
and  power  of  the  Parliament  every  one  knoweth 
what  it  is,  and  to  arm  the  hearts  and  consciences 
against  it  is  the  next  of  kin  to  it,  and  the  one  but 
the  high  road  to  the  other."  **  These  things,"  he 
says  in  conclusion,  "are  not  the  ways  of  English- 
men, Christians,  and  ministers  of  Christ "  (and 
here  probably  may  have  dropped  out  that  refer- 
ence to  those  of  another  nation  to  which  we  shall 
find  Johnston  alluding).  "  We  come  to  speak 
plainly  to  you  and  plain  English.  It  is  not  in 
the  thouGfhts  of  the  House  to  diso-race  or  discour- 
age  you  in  your  ministry."  Mr.  Browne,  who 
spoke  next,  enlarged  on  legal  precedents  as  to 
such  offenses,  and  the  penalty  o{ prceniunive  which 
the  House  had  not  explicitly  mentioned,  and 
reminded  them  not  only  how  the  Pope  had  abused 
spiritual  power,  but  how  they  had  smarted  from 
the  abuse  of  it  by  others,  forgetting  apparent!}' 
that  all  the  worst  acts  of  these  others  were 
done  by  them  as  Ecclesiastical  Commissioners, 
acting  under  the  sanction  of  those  statutes  which 
gave  ecclesiastical  authority  to  the  Head  of  the 
State.     Sir  Benjamin  Rudyard  spoke  briefly  upon 


320  Debates  on  the 

the  queries  regarding  the  jus  divimun  of  church- 
government,  and  the  mode  in  which  the  House 
expected  them  to  be  answered,  **  not  by  far-fetched 
arguments  which  are  commonly  cold  before  you 
come  to  the  matter,"  but  in  plain  and  express 
terms.  He  had  heard  much  spoken  of  "  the  pattern 
in  the  mount,"  but  could  never  for  his  part  find  it 
in  the  New  Testament. 

They  had  been  threatened  with  a  prcenmnire  by 
the  king  before  they  began  their  work.  They 
were  now  told  by  the  deputies  of  that  House  whom 
they  had  risked  so  much  to  serve  that  they  had 
incurred  that  penalty.  They  must  have  listened 
with  pain  to  the  speeches,  but  they  listened  in 
silence.  No  angry  word  escaped  them.  No  course 
of  action  was  hastily  resolved  on.  They  read  the 
paper  which  the  deputies  had  left,  and  quietly  ad- 
journed for  the  day.  Friends  as  well  as  opponents 
of  the  policy  of  the  House  of  Commons  have 
asserted  that  the  queries  were  proposed  anhiio 
teuta/idi  non  cedificandi.  But  the  deputies  pro- 
tested the  contrary.  The  Assembly  took  them  at 
their  word,  and  next  day  calmly  proceeded  to  make 
arrangements  for  the  work  devolved  on  them.^     It 

^  The  queries  left  by  the  deputies,  and  the  order  of  the  House 
of  Commons  regarding  them,  are  to  be  found  at  pp.  225  and  226 
of  the  printed  volume  of  the  Minutes  of  the  Assembly,  the  formal 
statement  of  their  case  against  the  Assembly  at  pp.  456,  457,  and 
the  speeches  at  pp.  448-456.     The  queries  are  here  subjoined. 

"  Whereas  it  is  resolved  by  the  House  of  Commons,  that  all 


Autonomy  of  the  CJmrch,  etc.       321 

was  proposed  that,  as  the  cause  was  God's,  they 
should  begin  by  seeking  His  guidance  with  fasting 

persons  guilty  of  notorious  and  scandalous  offenses  shall  be  sus- 
pended from  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper:  The  House  of 
Commons  desires  to  be  satisfied  by  the  Assembly  of  Divines  in 
these  Questions  following  : 

"  I.  Whether  the  Parochial  and  Congregational  Elderships  ap- 
pointed by  Ordinance  of  Parliament,  or  any  other  Congregational 
or  Presbyterial  Elderships,  are  jure  divino  and  by  the  will  and 
appointment  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  whether  any  particular  church- 
government  \)Q  jure  divino;   and  what  that  government  is? 

"  II.  Whether  all  the  members  of  the  said  Elderships,  as  mem- 
bers thereof,  or  which  of  them,  zxt  jure  divino  and  by  the  will  and 
appointment  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 

"  III.  Whether  the  superior  Assemblies  or  Elderships,  viz.,  the 
Classical,  Provincial,  and  National,  whether  all  or  any  of  them  are 
jure  divino  and  by  the  will  and  appointment  of  Jesus  Christ? 

"  IV.  Whether  appeals  from  Congregational  Elderships  to  the 
Classical,  Provincial,  and  National  Assemblies,  or  to  any  of  them, 
and  to  which  of  them,  ?a^  jure  divino  and  by  the  will  and  appoint- 
ment of  Jesus  Christ;  and  are  their  powers  upon  such  appeals  y«;r 
divino  and  l)y  the  will  and  appointment  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 

*' V.  Whether  Oecumenical  Assemblies  diXt  jure  divi^to ;  and 
whether  there  be  appeals  from  any  of  the  former  Assemblies  to  the 
said  Oecumenical  jure  divino  and  by  the  will  and  appointment  of 
Jesus  Christ  ? 

"  VI.  Whether  by  the  Word  of  God  the  power  of  judging  and 
declaring  what  are  such  notorious  and  scandalous  offenses  for 
which  persons  guilty  thereof  are  to  be  kept  from  the  sacrament 
of  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  of  conventing  before  them,  trying,  and 
actually  suspending  from  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  such 
offenders  accordingly,  is  either  in  the  Congregational  Eldership  or 
Presbytery,  or  in  any  other  Eldership,  Congregation,  or  Persons; 
and  whether  such  powers  are  in  them  only,  or  in  any  of  them,  and 
in  which  of  them,y«;v  divino  and  by  the  will  and  appointment  of 
Jesus  Christ  ? 

"  VII.  Whether  there  be  any  certain  and  particular  rules  ex- 
pressed in  the  Word  of  God  to  direct  the  Elderships  or  Presbyteries, 
Congregations  or  Persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  the  exercise  and 
execution  of  the  powers  aforesaid ;  and  \\  hat  are  those  rules  ? 
21 


322  Debates  on  th 


'le 


and  prayer.  The  suggestion  was  agreed  to,  and 
Wednesday  in  the  following  week  was  appointed 
to  be  observed  as  a  day  of  humiliation,  Messrs. 
Palmer,  Whitaker,  and  Case  being  named  to  lead 
their  devotions,  and  Messrs.  Cawdry  and  Arrow- 
smith  to  preach.  As  I  am  not  to  make  further 
reference  to  the  work  of  that  day  I  must  not  omit 
to  mention  here  that  the  notes  taken  by  the  scribe 
of  Arrowsmith's  sermon  show  it  especially  to  have 
been  worthy  of  the  occasion  and  of  his  reputation 
as  a  preacher  and  a  devoted  Christian.  It  had 
probably  been  intended  that  this  proposal  should 
be   made   by   Lord   Warriston    to   give   the  bold 

"VIII.  Is  there  anything  contahied  in  the  Word  of  God,  that 
the  supreme  Magistracy  in  a  Christian  State  may  not  judge  and  de- 
termine what  are  the  aforesaid  notorious  and  scandalous  offenses, 
and  the  manner  of  suspension  for  the  same :  and  in  what  particu- 
lars concerning  the  premises  is  the  said  supreme  Magistracy  by 
the  Word  of  God  excluded  ? 

"  IX.  Whether  the  provision  of  Commissioners  to  judge  of 
scandals  not  enumerated  (as  they  are  authorized  by  the  Ordinance 
of  Parliament)  be  contrary  to  that  way  of  government  which  Christ 
hath  appointed  in  His  Church,  and  wherein  are  they  so  contrary  ? 

"  In  answer  to  these  particulars,  the  House  of  Commons  desires 
of  the  Assembly  of  Divines  their  proofs  from  Scripture;  and  to  set 
down  the  several  texts  of  Scripture  in  the  express  words  of  the 
same.  It  is  Ordered  that  every  particular  minister  of  the  Assem- 
bly of  Divines,  that  is  or  shall  be  at  the  debate  of  any  of  these 
Questions,  do,  upon  every  Resolution  which  shall  be  presented  to 
this  House  concerning  the  same,  subscribe  his  respective  name, 
either  with  the  affirmative  or  negative,  as  he  gives  his  vote :  And 
that  those  that  do  dissent  from  the  major  part  shall  set  down  their 
positive  opinions,  with  the  express  texts  of  Scripture  upon  which 
their  opinions  are  grounded." — Journals  of  House  of  Commofis, 
vol.  iv.  pp.  519,  520. 


AtUonomy  of  the  CJmrcJi,  etc.       323 

Scottish  lawyer  an  opportunity  of  replying  to  the 
speeches  of  the  previous  day,  but  coming  in  late 
and  finding  it  already  made,  he  seems  to  have 
delivered  as  two  speeches  what  he  had  written  out 
and  afterward  sent  down  to  the  Commissioners 
of  the  Assembly  as  one.  This  has  been  inserted 
in  the  records  of  the  Commission  of  the  Scotch 
Assembly,  but  has  never  been  published  save 
among  the  reports  given  in  to  the  General  Assem- 
bly of  the  Church  of  Scotland  in  1879,  and  as  it 
gives  a  much  clearer  view  of  his  argument  than  the 
desultory  jottings  of  the  scribe  of  the  Assembly 
I  subjoin  it  in  a  slightly  abridged  form  : — 

"  Mr.  Prolocutor,^  —I  am  a  stranger.  I  will  not  meddle 
with  Parliament  priviledges  of  another  nation  nor  the 
breach  thereof;  but  as  a  Christian  under  one  common  Lord, 
a  ruling  elder  in  another  Church,  and  a  Parliament  man  in 
another  kingdome,  having  a  commission  both  from  that 
Church  and  State,  and  at  the  desire  of  this  kingdome,  assist- 
ing to  your  debates,  I  entreat  for  your  favour  and  patience 
(seeing  at  all  tymes  I  cannot  attend  this  reverend  meeting 
according  to  my  desire)  to  express  my  thoughts  of  what  is 
before  you.  In  my  judgment  that  is  before  you  w'^"  con- 
cerns Christ  and  these  kingdoms  most,  and  above  all,  and 
w^''  will  be  the  chiefest  mean  to  end  or  continew  these 
troubles.  ...  I  can  never  be  persuaded  they  were  raised  or 
willbe  calmed  upon  the  settling  of  civil  rights  and  privi- 
ledges   either  of  King  or    Parliaments,    whatsoever   may 

1  It  is  entitled  in  the  records  of  the  Commission  "  Lord  Warris- 
toun's  Speech  to  the  Assembly  of  Divines  in  England  in  Answer 
to  Sir  John  Evelyn  and  Nath[aniel]  Fiennes,  concerning  the 
Breach  of  Priviledge."  It  is  now  published  at  full  length  in  vol. 
i.  pp.  82-98  of  the  Minutes  of  the  Commission  of  the  General  As- 
sembly of  the  Church  of  Scotland. 


324  Debates  07i  the 

seeme  to  be  our  present  successe.  But  I  am  convinced  they 
have  a  higher  rise  from  above,  for  the  highest  end— the 
setthng  the  crown  of  Christ  in  this  island  to  be  propagat[ed] 
from  island  to  continent.  Untill  King  Jesus  be  set  down  on 
his  throne  with  his  sceptre  in  his  hand  I  do  not  expect  God's 
peace,  and  so  no  solid  peace  from  men  in  these  kingdomes  ; 
but  that  soveraigne  truth  being  established  a  durable  peace 
will  be  found  to  follow  yupon." 

"  I  was  glade  to  hear  the  Parliament  professe  their  willing- 
nesse  to  receive  and  observe  whatsoever  shall  be  shewne 
from  the  Word  of  God  to  be  Christ  or  his  Church  their  right 
and  due ;  albeit  I  wes  sorrie  to  see  any  in  the  delyverie  of 
[their  message]  to  intermix  any  of  y""  own  personall  asperity, 
any  aspersion  upon  this  assembly  or  reflection  upon  another 
nadon  ;  so  I  believe  in  this  day  of  law  for  Christ  in  which 
justice  is  offered,  if  he  get  not  right  it  will  be  counted  your 
fault,  in  not  shewing  His  patent  from  His  Father  and  His 
Church's  patent  from  him.  [Now  they  have  laid  it  on  your 
shoulders,  it  lies  at  your  door.] 

"  Sir,  all  Christians  are  bound  to  give  a  testimony  to  everie 
truth  when  they  ar  called  to  it ;  but  ye  ar  the  immediat  ser- 
vants of  the  Most  High— Christ's  precones  and  heralds, 
whose  propper  function  is  to  proclaim  his  name,  preserve  his 
offices,  and  assert  his  rights.  Christ  has  had  many  testi- 
monies given  to  his  prophetical  and  priestly  office  by  the 
pleading  and  suffering  of  his  saincts  ;  and  in  thir  latter  dayes 
he  seems  to  require  the  samyne  unto  his  kingly  office.  A 
king  loves  a  testimony  to  his  crowne  best  of  any,  as  that  w"^ 
is  tenderest  to  him  ;  and  confessors  or  martyres  for  Christ's 
crowne  ar  the  most  royal  and  most  stately  of  any  state  mar- 
tyrs ;  for  although  Christ's  kingdome  be  not  of  this  world, 
and  his  servants  did  not  fight  therefor  when  he  wes  to  suffer  ; 
yet  it  is  in  this  world,  and  for  this  end  was  he  born.  And 
to  this  end  that  we  may  give  a  tesdmony  to  this  truth 
amongst  others  were  wee  born  ;  nor  should  we  be  ashamed 
of  it  or  deny  it  but  confesse  and  avouche  it  by  pleading, 
doing  and  suffering  for  it,  even  in  this  generation,  w"^"  seems 
most  to  oppose  it  and  y-'by  require  a  seasonable  testimony. 
But  in  a  peculiar  way  it  lyeth  upon  you,  sir,  who  hes  both 
your  calling  from  Christ  for  it  and  at  this  time  a  particular 


Autonomy  of  the  Chw^ch,  etc.       325 

calling  from  man.  It  is  that  w'''^  the  hon'''*-'  houses  requires 
and  expects  from  you  especially  at  such  a  time  when  the 
settlement  of  religion  depends  y'upon,  and  when  it  is  the 
verie  controversie  of  the  tyme  xo  xpvM'iif.vMv^.  And  the  civil 
magistrates  not  only  call  you  before  them  to  averre  the  truth 
therein,  but  also  to  give  you  good  examples,  comes  befor  yow 
out  of  the  tendernes  of  y""  civil  trust  and  dutie  to  maintain 
the  priviledge  of  Parliament  by  the  covenant,  and  for  respect 
to  yow  to  give  a  testimony  asserting  of  y""  civil  ryghts  and 
priviledge,  and  to  forwarn  you  least  yee  break  the  samen 
and  incurre  civil  prcmoniries.  Sir,  this  should  teach  us  to 
be  as  tender,  zealous,  and  carefuU  to  assert  Christ  and  his 
Church  their  priviledge  and  right,  and  to  forewarn  all  least 
they  endanger  y""  souls  by  incrotching  y'upon,  .  .  .  that 
Christ  lives  and  reigns  alone  over  and  in  his  Church,  and 
will  have  all  done  therein  according  to  his  word  and  will, 
and  that  he  hes  given  no  supreme  headship  over  his  Church 
to  any  pope,  king,  or  parliament  whatsoever. 

"  Sir,  ye  are  often  desired  to  remember  the  bounds  of  your 
commission  from  man  and  not  to  exceed  the  samen  ;  I  am 
confident  you  will  make  as  much  conscience  not  to  be  defi- 
cient in  the  discharge  of  your  commission  from  Christ.  But 
now,  Sir,  ye  have  a  commission  from  God  and  man 
(for  the  w*^^  ye  have  reason  to  thank  God  and  the  Parlia- 
ment) to  discuss  the  truth  that  Christ  is  a  king  and  hes  a 
kingdome  in  the  externall  government  of  his  church,  and  that 
he  hes  set  doun  the  lawes  and  offices  and  other  substantialls 
y'of.  Wee  must  not  now  before  men  mince,  hold  up,  conceal, 
prudentially  waive  anything  necessary  for  this  testimony, .  .  . 
nor  quit  a  hoofe,  or  edge  away  an  hemme  of  Christ's  robe 
royal.  These  would  seem  effects  of  desertions,  tokens  of 
being  ashamed,  affrayed,  or  politikly  diverted,  yea  gradus 
denegatiotiis  Christi,  and  all  these  and  everie  degree  of 
them,  sir,  I  am  confident,  will  be  verie  farre  from  the 
thoughts  of  everie  one  heir,  who  already  by  their  votes  and 
petitions,  according  to  y'  protestation  at  y""  entry,  have 
shewn  themselves  so  zealous  and  forward  to  give  their  testi- 
mony, albeit  they  did  easily  foresee  it  would  not  be  verie 
acceptable  to  powers  on  the  earth.     .     .     . 

"  Truely,  sir,  I  am  confident  ye  will  never  be  so  in  love  with 


326  Debates  on  the 

a  peaceable  and  external  possession  of  anything  that  may  be 
granted  to  the  Church  as  to  conceale,  disclaime,  or  intervert 
your  Master's  right.  That  were  to  lose  the  substance  for 
the  circumstance,  to  disserve  and  dethrone  Christ  to  serve 
yourselves  and  enthrone  others  in  his  place.  A  tennent 
doing  so  to  his  overlord  forfaults  all.  Who  speaks  for  civil 
liberties  would  never  so  undo  them  ;  ye  ar  commandit  to  be 
faithful  in  little ;  but  now  ye  ar  commandit  to  be  faithful  in 
much.  For  albeit  the  salvation  of  soules  be  called  ciira 
citrarum,  the  wellfare  and  happiness  of  the  Church  made  up 
of  these  is  farre  more.  But  the  kingdome  of  Christ  est  quid 
optimum  maximum,  and  to  have  it  now  under  your  debate, 
as  it  is  the  greatest  honour  God  can  bestow  upon  an  assem- 
bly, so  is  it  the  greatest  danger,  for,  according  now  as  God 
shall  assist  you  or  desert  you,  ye  may  and  will  be  the  instru- 
ments of  the  greatest  good  or  evil  on  earth.     .     .     . 

"  Sir,  some  may  think  ye  have  had  a  designe  in  abstaining 
so  long  to  assert  the  divine  right  of  church-government,  and 
now  to  come  in  with  it.  Truely,  Sir,  I  look  on  this  check 
as  from  ane  good  providence  for  your  great  sparingnes  and 
absteinensies  in  that  poynt,  and  must  beare  witness  to 
many  passages  of  God's  good  hand  in  not  suffering  us  to 
make  a  stand  of  our  desires  concerning  religion,  either  in 
Scotland  or  heir,  albeit  we  have  oft  set  downe  measure  to 
ourselves.  But  he  hes  as  often  moved  us  step  for  step  to 
trace  back  our  defections,  and  made  the  last  innovation  a 
besom  to  sweepe  out  the  former,  and  the  king's  refusall  to 
be  a  mean  to  engage  us  in  covenant  with  himself  and 
others.  ...  By  this  good  hand  of  God  and  for  this  end  I 
hope  these  queries  ar  brought  to  you  at  this  time. 

"Sir,  your  serving  the  Parliament  a  while,  I  am  confi- 
dent hes  bene  and  will  be  still,  not  that  they  may  serve  yow 
who  hes  ministcrium,  a  quo  absit  domiiiatus,  sed  ad  adsit 
authoritas,  as  over  us  in  the  Lord,  but  to  serve  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ ;  and  that  Parliament  will  glorie  more  in  y*"  sub- 
ordination and  subservience  to  him  nor  in  their  empire  or 
command  over  the  world. 

"Sir,  we  may  heare  much  of  breache  of  priviledge  and 
covenant  in  relation  to  civile  rights.  Let  us  remember  in 
the  covenant  the  three  ends  in  the  title  and  preface,  three 


Autonomy  of  the  CJmrcJi,  etc.       327 

maine  duties  in  the  body,  and  the  thrie  effects  in  the  close. 
The  covenant  begins  with  the  advancement  and  ends  with 
the  enLargement  of  the  kingdome  of  Christ  as  the  sub- 
stantial! and  overword  of  the  whole.  The  first  article  of  the 
sevin  is  Christ's  article,  lyke  dies  doininica  in  the  week,  all 
the  rest  ar  in  Domino,  and  subordinat  y^mto,  and  s^bordi- 
nata  noft pugnant.  And  certainlie  so  judicious  and  happy, 
so  protesting,  covenanting,  declaring,  so  doing  and  suffering 
a  Parliament,  for  reformation  will  never  claime  anything  as 
a  civile  priviledge  or  right  w*^''  ye  will  dtmonstrat  to  be 
proper  to  Christ's  kingdome  as  distinct  from  the  kingdomes 
of  the  earth.  Christ's  throne  is  highest,  and  his  priviledge 
supreme  as  only  head  and  king  of  his  Church,  albeit  kings 
and  magistrates  may  be  members  in  it.  There  is  no  author- 
ity to  be  ballanced  with  his,  nor  post  to  be  set  up  against 
his  post,  nor  the  altar  of  Damascus  against  his  altar,  nor 
strange  fire  against  his  fire,  nor  Corahs  to  be  allowed  against 
his  Aarons,  nor  Uzziahs  against  his  Azariahs.  Is  it  so 
small  a  thing  to  have  the  sworde  that  they  must  have  the 
keyes  also  ?  Quce  Dens  sejnnxit  Jwvw  ne  jungat.  And 
truely,  sir,  I  am  confident  that  parliament,  citty,  country, 
both  nations  will  acknowledge  themselves  engaged  under 
and  to  this  authority,  and  as  they  would  not  be  drawn  from 
it,  so  ye  will  never  endeavour  to  draw  us  to  any  other 
authority  ;  and  whatsoever  reflection  to  the  contrary  wes 
insinuat  by  the  delyverer  of  the  message,  I  cannot  but  imput 
it  to  personal!  passion,  w*"''  long  ago  is  knowne  to  the  world. 
But  we  will  never  beleeve  the  hon^''^  house  would  allow 
thereof,  as  farre  beneath  their  wisdome  and  contrare  to  your 
merite. 

"And  now,  sir,  seeing  the  quaeries  ar  before  you,  I  am  con- 
fident that  whatsoever  diversity  of  opinions  maybe  amongst 
you  in  any  particular,  yee  will  all  look  to  and  hold  out  the 
maine,  Christ's  kingdome  distinct  from  the  kingdomes  of 
this  earth,  and  that  he  hes  and  might  appoint  the  govern- 
ment of  his  own  house  and  should  rule  the  samen  ;  and  that 
none  of  this  Assembly,  even  for  the  gaining  their  desires  in 
all  the  poynts  of  difference,  would  by  y'^  silence,  concealment, 
and  connivance  weaken,  communicat,  or  sell  any  part  of 
this  fundamental!  truth,  this  sovereign  interest  of  Christ,  and 


328  Debates  on  the 

that  ye  will  all  concurre  to  demonstate  the  samen  by  clear 
passages  of  Scripture,  necessarie  consequences  yTra,  w'^^  can 
no  more  be  denyed  or  esteemed  cold  nor  the  letter  itself,  and 
by  the  universall  constant  practice  of  the  Apostles,  w^^  ar 
as  cleare  rules  unto  us  as  any  human  lavves,  inferences,  and 
practises  ar  or  can  be  brought  for  any  civile  priviledges. 

"Sir,  I  will  only  close  this  by  reminding  yow  of  two 
passages  of  your  letter,  sent  by  order  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons to  the  Generall  Assembly  of  the  Church  of  Scotland, 
that  ye  will  sett  out  such  a  discipline  as  to  the  utmost  of 
your  power  ye  may  exalt  Christ,  the  only  Lord  over  the 
Church  his  own  house,  in  all  his  offices,  and  present  this 
church  as  a  chast  virgine  to  Christ.  And  for  this  end  that 
ye  were  not  restrained  by  the  Houses  in  your  votes  and 
resolutions,  nor  bound  up  to  the  sense  of  others,  nor  to 
carry  on  privat  designes  in  ane  servile  way  ;  but  by  your 
oath  new  formed  against  all  fettering  of  your  judgments,  and 
engaged  y'by  according  to  the  Houses'  desire,  to  use  all 
freedome  becoming  the  integrity  of  your  conscience,  weight 
of  the  cause,  and  the  gravity  and  honour  of  such  an 
Assembly." 

Heartened  and  cheered  by  the  speech  of  Lord 
Warriston,  and  feeling  they  had  a  noble  cause  to 
maintain,  the  Assembly  resolutely  set  themselves 
to  their  Herculean  task,  and  for  eight  weeks  they 
labored  at  it  zealously  and  uncomplainingly. 
Most  of  the  replies  had  passed  through  the  com- 
mittees, and  a  considerable  part  through  the  Assem- 
bly, but,  as  had  been  anticipated  by  many,  it  proved 
to  be  a  very  tedious  business  and  threatened  to 
divert  them  too  long  from  more  pressing  work.  So 
when,  through  the  mediation  of  the  City,  a  better 
understanding  had  been  restored  between  the 
House  of  Commons  on  the  one  side  and  the  As- 


Autonomy  of  the   CJmrch,  etc.       329 

sembly  and  the  Scottish  Commissioners  on  the 
other,  and  a  third  ordinance  had  been  passed  by 
ParHament  withdrawing  the  obnoxious  Provincial 
Commissioners,  and  substituting  in  their  room  the 
ParHament  itself  or  a  grand  committee  of  the  two 
Houses,  the  London  ministers,  though  not  fully 
satisfied,  consented  to  act  under  the  Ordinance,  and 
the  Scotch  Commissioners,  while  urging  yet  further 
concessions,  agreed  to  refrain  from  insisting  on  them 
as  a  condition  of  continued  amity.  The  House  of 
Commons,  whose  members  had  all  along  protested 
that  they  were  not  opposed  to  godly  discipline,  but 
only  wished  it  to  be  "  rightly  jointed  with  the  laws 
of  the  kingdom,"  issued  an  order  for  hastening  the 
Confession  and  Catechism,  which  was  regarded  as 
a  warrant  for  postponing  the  other  work.  This 
work,  however,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  was  not 
lost,  but  supplemented  and  expanded  by  some  of 
the  London  ministers,  it  made  its  appearance 
before  the  close  of  the  year^  in  certain  parts  of  the 
jfiis  Divinum  Rcginiinis  Ecclcsiastici,  much  to  the 
indignation  of  several  members  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  answers  to  the  queries  were,  with 
consent  of  the  House,  resumed  by  the  Assembly 
in  1648  after  it  had  finished  its  Confession  and 
Catechisms,  and  had  no  other  special  work  to  do. 
But  the  minutes  after  that  date  are  so  brief  that 
only  a  few  entries  are  made  on  the  subject,  and  we 

^  Answers  to  the  queries  had  appeared  in  June  1646. 


330  Debates  on  the 

do  not  know  if  the  work  was  ever  formally  com- 
pleted. The  final  Ordinance  of  Parliament  on 
church-government,  embodying  and  supplementing 
or  making  permanent  the  former  ones,  still  con- 
tained the  clause  authorizing  appeals  from  the 
Church  courts  to  Parliament,  but  I  have  found  no 
evidence  that  any  such  appeal  was  ever  made. 
The  London  ministers  in  fact,  in  agreeing  to 
organize  under  the  Ordinances  of  6th  June  1646, 
had  published  their  resolution  "  to  practice  in  all 
things  according  to  the  rule  of  the  Word,  and 
according  to  these  Ordinances  so  far  as  they  con- 
ceive them  to  correspond  to  it,  and  in  so  doing 
they  trust  they  shall  not  grieve  the  spirit  of  the 
truly  godly,  nor  give  any  just  occasion  to  them 
that  are  contrary  minded  to  blame  "  their  pro- 
ceedings.^ 

It  was  during  these  anxious  months  in  the 
spring  and  early  summer  of  1646  that  those  far- 
famed  debates  on  the  independent  government  of 
the  Church  took  place  which  are  recorded  at  con- 
siderable length  in  the  Minutes  of  the  Assembly.^ 
The  proposition  "  That  Jesus  Christ  as  King  and 
Head  of  His  Church,  hath  appointed  an  ecclesias- 
tical frovernment  in  His  Church  distinct  from  the 
civil  government,"  was  first  tabled  for  discussion 
on  Friday  6th  March  1645-6,  while  the  Ordinance 

*  Considerations  and  Cautions  from  Zion  College,  19  June  1646. 
2  See  Minutes  of  the  Assembly,  pp.  193-203,  424-432. 


Aittonoiny  of  the   C/iurch,  etc.       331 

for  Provincial  Commissioners  was  being  elaborated 
in  the  Houses.  It  does  not  seem  to  have  formed 
part  of  the  original  report  on  the  Church,  as  it  had 
been  brought  up  on  Thursday,  and  Coleman,  before 
opening  the  discussion  on  the  following  Monday, 
"  moved  to  pass  the  proposition  brought  in  by  the 
Committee  which  would  pass  without  any  ques- 
tion," and  once  again  in  the  course  of  the  debate 
he  renewed  his  proposal.  But  it  was  not  agreed 
to  by  the  Assembly.  So  with  all  the  zest  of  a 
keen  and  practised  debater  he  set  himself  to  the 
discussion  of  the  proofs  adduced  in  support  of  the 
proposition,  and  for  several  days  bore  the  brunt 
of  the  battle  almost  single-handed.  The  argu- 
ments were  based  chiefly  on  Matt,  xviii.  and  I 
Cor.  v.,  and  were  proposed  in  syllogistic  form,  and 
long  and  tough  were  the  encounters  between  him 
on  the  one  side  and  Rutherfurd  and  Gillespie  on 
the  other.  Others  spoke  occasionally  and  briefly, 
but  these  were  the  combatants  in  chief,  and  on 
them  all  eyes  were  fixed.  At  length,  on  the  1 8th, 
when  the  Assembly  called  to  the  order  of  the  day, 
Mr.  Coleman  was  not  present  to  continue  the  de- 
bate, but  some  members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, \vho  were  desirous  to  elicit  further  expla- 
nations from  the  Divines,  continued  it  for  a  time, 
and  it  was  again  adjourned.  Next  day  it  was 
reported  that  Mr.  Coleman  was  ill,  and  two  of  the 
members  were  deputed  to  visit  him.     The  follow- 


332  Debates  oji  the 

ing  day  one  of  these  reported  that  he  had  fulfilled 
his  commission,  and  found  that  Mr.  Coleman  was 
very  ill,  but  returned  his  thanks  to  the  Assembly 
for  their  kind  inquiries,  and  expressed  his  desire 
to  be  further  heard  in  the  argument,  and  to  have 
the  debate  adjourned  till  he  was  able  to  return. 
They  complied  so  far  with  the  request  of  their 
dying  brother,  and  it  was  not  till,  on  30th  of 
March,  they  had  followed  his  body  to  the  grave 
that  they  resumed  the  debate.  It  was  carried  on 
more  languidly  by  Lightfoot  and  some  members 
of  the  House  of  Commons  throughout  the  month 
of  April,  and  then  was  merged  in  the  wider  de- 
bate raised  by  the  queries  of  the  Commons.  After 
further  discussion,  the  proposition  was  on  7th  July 
passed  as  part  of  the  answer  to  the  first  query, 
fifty-two  voting  for  it,  and  Lightfoot  alone  against 
it.  On  26th  September  it  was  with  some  slight 
verbal  changes  passed  as  the  first  section  of  chap- 
ter XXX.  of  their  Confession.  That  chapter  was 
not  passed  by  the  House  of  Commons,  nor  does 
it  have  a  place  in  the  Independent  or  the  Baptist 
recension  of  the  Confession.  But  it  is  retained  by 
all  the  Presbyterian  churches,  which  receive  the 
Confession  as  it  came  from  the  Assembly,  and  is 
held  in  honor  by  them. 

Thus,  through  calm  and  storm,  in  sunshine  and 
in  shade,  the  Divines  held  on  the  even  tenor  of 
their  way,  and  whatever  may  have  been  intended 


AtUonomy  of  the   Church,  etc.       333 

by  some  "  who  were  not  ovcrloving  of  any,  least  of 
all  of  these  clergymen,"  they  were  not  in  point  of 
fact  brought  into  disgrace  or  discredit  at  the  time, 
nor  have  they  been  so  subsequently  on  account  of 
their  firm  but  dignified  and  respectful  protest 
against  the  Erastianism  of  so  large  a  section  of 
the  House  of  Commons. 

Before  these  debates  came  to  a  close,  the  first 
civil  war  had  virtually  ended.  The  relief  of 
Gloucester  (p.  184)  was,  according  to  Mr.  Green, 
the  turning-point  in  the  struggle,  and,  though 
after  that  occasional  blinks  of  sunshine  came  to 
raise  the  sinking  spirits  of  the  Cavaliers,  things  on 
the  whole  went  steadily  if  slowly  against  them. 
The  victory  of  Marston  Moor  broke  their  power 
in  Yorkshire,  and  that  of  Naseby  did  the  same 
for  the  King  and  Prince  Rupert  in  the  heart  of 
England,  and  that  of  Philiphaugh  did  for  Mont- 
rose in  Scotland.  As  the  Parliamentary  forces 
prepared  to  close  round  Oxford,  the  king  escaped 
to  the  Scottish  army  before  Newark,  and  on  the 
surrender  of  that  place  retired  with  them  to  New- 
castle. There  one  more  earnest  and  prolonged 
attempt  was  made  to  bring  him  to  terms.  Hen- 
derson wore  out  his  sinking  strength  in  the 
thankless  service.  He  and  Blair,  with  the  nobles 
and  officers,  besought  the  infatuated  monarch, 
with  tears,  to  yield  to  the  wishes  of  his  people. 
But  all  was  in  vain,  and  with  sore  hearts  and  sad 


334  Debates  on  the  Autonomy  of  the  Chui^ch. 

misgivings  they  left  him  in  the  hands  of  the  Eng- 
hsh  Commissioners,  and  took  their  departure  from 
a  land  where  it  was  now  only  too  manifest  they 
were  no  longer  welcome  guests. 


LECTURE    X. 

THE  WESTMINSTER  CONFESSION  OF   FAITH   OR    ARTICLES 
OF    CHRISTIAN    RELIGION. 

Pa7't  I. — Introductory  history  of  doctrine^  a7td  detailed 
ace  omit  of  the  preparation  of  the  Confession. 

In  my  last  Lecture  I  gave  you  a  full  account 
of  the  controversies  on  the  autonomy  of  the 
Church,  which  engaged  the  attention  of  the  As- 
sembly in  1646,  and  interrupted  for  a  time  the 
preparation  of  its  doctrinal  standards.  In  to-day's 
Lecture  I  shall  endeavor  to  give  a  succinct  ac- 
count of  the  preparation  of  the  Assembly's  Con- 
fession of  Faith,  which  is  regarded  in  most  Pres- 
byterian Churches  as  the  principal,  and  in  some 
as  the  sole  doctrinal  standard.  As  I  promised  in 
a  former  lecture  (p.  55),  however,  I  must  first  ad- 
vert to  the  previous  history  of  doctrine  in  the 
British  Churches.  I  have  already  explained  that 
the  differences  between  the  Puritans^  and   their 

1  "  Albeit  the  Puritans  disquieted  our  Church  about  their  con- 
ceived discipline,  yet  they  never  moved  any  quarrel  against  the 
doctrine  of  our  Church.  .  .  It  was  then  the  open  confession,  both 
of  the  Bishops  and  of  the  Puritans,  that  both  parties  embraced  a 
mutual  consent  in  doctrine."—  Bishop  Carleton's  Examination  of 
Bishop  Montague's  Appeal,  p.  5. 

335 


336    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

opponents  at  first  seemed  to  be  few  in  number, 
and  of  minor  importance,  just  because  so  much 
of  what  afterward  came  to  be  named  puritanic 
was  then  accepted  and  valued  by  almost  all  who 
favored  the  principles  of  the  Reformation.  I 
stated  that  this  was  especially  the  case  with  re- 
spect to  that  system  of  doctrine  known  as  Augus- 
tinian  or  Calvinistic,  the  holders  of  which,  by  the 
time  of  Archbishop  Laud,  had  come  to  be  nick- 
named doctrinal  Puritans.  As  the  movement 
which  culminated  in  the  Westminster  Assembly 
was  designed  above  all  to  be  a  protest  against  the 
misrepresentation  this  involved,  and  if  possible  to 
restore  Augustinianism  and  the  theology  of  the 
English  reformation  to  its  old  place  of  honor  in  the 
Church,  I  must  now  revert  to  this  subject,  and 
give  at  least  a  brief  outline  of  the  history  of  this 
theology  in  the  British  Churches. 

There  was  perhaps  no  branch  of  the  mediaeval 
Church  where  the  system  of  doctrine  developed 
by  Augustine  had  so  unquestionably  retained  its 
old  supremacy  to  the  last  as  the  Anglo-Norman. 
The  system  of  its  greatest  theologians,  Anselm 
and  Bradwardine,  appropriated  by  Wyclif  and  the 
Lollards,  continued  or  revived  by  Tyndale,  Frith, 
Barnes,  and  their  coadjutors,  may  be  said  to  have 
formed  the  substratum  of  the  Reformed  teaching, 
even  while  it  was  least  affected  by  influences  from 
abroad.      Such    influences,    however,    were    early 


Iiit7'odtictory  Histo7'y  of  Doctrine,   'i^^'] 

brought  to  bear  on  that  teaching,  and  it  has  long 
seemed  to  me  that  the  effect  of  these  upon  it,  and 
their  ready  assimilation,  were  largely  due  to  the 
hold  Augustinianism  had  already  gained,  that  it 
was  through  the  teaching  of  Anselm,  Bradvvar- 
dine,  Wyclif,  and  Tyndale,  rather  than  from  "  fas- 
cination of  the  calm,  clear  intellect  of  Calvin," 
they  were  first  attracted  toward  him  and  the  later 
predestinarian  school.  With  the  full  sanction  of 
Cranmer  and  the  Privy  Council  of  Edward  VL, 
Martin  Bucer  and  Peter  Martyr  were  in  1548  in- 
vited to  P^ngland,  and  soon  after  their  arrival  were 
installed  as  professors  or  lecturers  in  divinity  in 
the  Universities  of  Cambridge  and  Oxford,  to 
imbue  with  the  theology  of  the  Reformation  the 
future  ministers  of  the  English  Church.  Their 
published  commentaries  on  the  Ephesians  and  the 
Romans  embody  the  substance  of  the  lectures 
they  delivered  in  the  years  1550  and  155 1,  and 
show  clearly  that  their  teaching  on  predestination 
and  other  related  subjects  was  in  thorough  ac- 
cordance with  that  of  Augustine  and  Anselm,  as 
well  as  with  that  of  Calvin.  The  following  is 
Bucer's  definition  of  election  : — "  Est  itaque  electio 
destinatio  et  certa  Dei  miseratio  ab  seterno  ante 
mundum  constitutum,  qua  Deus  eos,  quorum  vult 
misereri,  ex  universo  perditorum  hominum  genere 
ad  vitam  seternam  secernit,  ex  plane  liberali  mise- 
ricordia,  priusquam  quicquam  possint  boni  aut 
22 


338    The  Westmhistcr  Confession  of  Faith. 

mali  facere.  Certa,  inquam,  est  et  immutabilis, 
per  Jesum  Christum  unigenitum  filium  Dei  et 
nostrum  mediatorem,  ab  aeterno  destinatum  caput 
ecclesiae  ac  reconciliatorem,  secundum  seternum 
et  immutabile  propositum  suum,  ut  nos  adoptaret 
in  filios  et  haeredes  et  in  novam  vitam  regeneraret, 
ut  sancti  essemus  et  irreprehensibiles  coram  ipso 
ad  gloriam  gratiae  suae."  ^  Martyr's  definition  is  : — 
"  Dico  igiturpraedestinationemesse  sapientissimum 
propositum  Dei,  quo  ante  omnem  aeternitatem 
decrevit  constantei*,  eos,  quos  dilexit  in  Christo, 
vocare  ad  adoptionem  filiorum,  ad  justificationem 
ex  fide  et  tandem  ad  gloriam  per  bona  opera,  quo 
conformes  fiant  imagini  Filii  Dei,  utque  in  illis 
declaretur  gloria  et  misericordia  Creatoris."  ^  Note- 
worthy as  these  definitions  are  when  viewed  by 
themselves,  they  are  still  more  noteworthy  when 
we  view  them  in  connection  Avith  the  XVI  Ith  of 
the  Edwardian  Articles  which  were  drawn  up 
about  the  same  time.  Had  we  known  no  more 
than  that  these  two  divines  were  held  in  high 
regard  by  Cranmer  and  the  advisers  of  the  king, 
and  were  consulted  by  them  on  the  revision  of  the 

1  Piaelectiones.  .  .  D.  Martini  Buceri  habitce  Cantabridgioe  in 
Anglia,  anno  1550  et  1551,  pp.  22,  23. 

■■*  In  Epistolam  S,  Pauli  Apostoli  ad  Romanos  D,  Petri  Martyris 
commentarii,  p.  41 1,  folio  edition,  1 558.  The  work  was  not  pub- 
lished till  after  he  left  England,  but  we  learn  from  the  preface  that 
it  had  been  written  out  by  1552,  and  the  schedcc  circulated  among 
his  friends  there,  and  from  his  letters  we  learn  it  was  ready  for 
publication  when  he  left  in   1 553. 


Introductory  History  of  Doctrine. 


JO' 


liturgy,  we  would  have  known  enough  to  warrant 
us  carefully  to  compare  their  teaching  with  that  of 
this  Article,  to  ascertain  whether  the  one  was  not 
to  a  certain  extent  reflected  in  the  other,  and 
calculated  to  aid  us  in  tracing  its  sources  and 
character.  But  we  know  further,  that  after  the 
death  of  Bucer,  Martyr  continued  to  be  consulted 
and  cherished  by  the  Primate,  and  we  have  posi- 
tive testimony  that  he  was  one  of  those  associated 
with  him,  not  only  in  the  commission  of  thirty- 
two  for  the  reformation  of  the  ecclesiastical  laws, 
but  also  in  some  smaller  conmiittee^  (of  that  com- 
mission, or  of  Convocation)  which  was  occupied 
especially  with  purity  of  doctrine.  He  paid  re- 
peated and  lengthened  visits  to  Lambeth  in 
the  fall  of  the  year  155  i  and  the  spring  of  1552, 
on  the  business  of  that  committee,  and  his  friend 
and  amanuensis,  John  ab  Ulmis,  had  in  1550 
translated  from  German  into  Latin,  for  the  Pri- 
mate, the  Confession  of  Strasburg.^  He  was 
named    by   Cranmer   in    1553    in    his  Purgation^ 

*  "  The  Convocation  began  to  be  held  ...  on  the  12th  of  De- 
cember by  most  excellent  and  learned  men  who  are  to  deliberate 
and  consult  about  a  proper  moral  discipline,  and  the  pitriiy  of 
doctrine.  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  Peter  ISIartyr,  the 
Archbishop  of  York,  and  the  Bishop  of  London,  together  with  the 
newly  appointed  Chancellor  of  England  .  .  .  Bishop  of  Ely  and 
our  friend  Skinner  .  .  .  are  to  form  a  select  committee  on  these 
points." — John  ab  Ulmis  to  BuUinger,  in  Original  Letters  relating 
to  the  Refonnation,  Parker  Society  edition,  pp.  444,  503. 

2  John  ab  Ulmis,  Original  Letters,  Parker  Soc.  ed.,  p.  404. 

^  I  with  the  said  Master  Peter  Martvr  and  other  four  or  five. 


340    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith, 

as  one  with  whose  help  he  would  be  ready  to 
defend  "  all  the  doctrine  "  set  forth  in  the  reign  of 
Edward  VI. ;  and  still  later  he  seems  to  be  referred 
to  by  the  Archbishop  in  his  final  examination  as 
one  whose  advice  he  had  taken  about  the  Articles/ 
We  feel,  therefore,  not  merely  warranted,  but  even 
bound  to  compare  them  with  his  doctrinal  teaching 
ere  we  venture,  with  any  approach  to  confidence, 
to  pronounce  on  the  sources  from  which  they  have 
been  taken,  or  the  exact  shade  of  meaning  they 
were  meant  to  convey.  I  have  given  above  the 
definition  of  predestination  by  Martyr  as  it  is 
exhibited  on  p.  411  of  the  folio  edition  of  his 
Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  Let 
me  now  place  this  opposite  to  the  first  part  of  the 

which  I  shall  choose,  will  by  God's  grace  take  upon  us  to  defend 
not  only  the  common  prayers  of  the  Church,  the  ministration  of  the 
sacraments,  and  other  rites  and  ceremonies,  but  also  all  the  doc- 
trine and  religion  set  out  by  our  sovereign  lord  King  Edward  the 
Sixth. — Foxe's  Acts  and  A/onitments,  vol.  vi.  p.  539, 

^  Foxe  (viii.  p.  58)  represents  Cranmer  as  saying  that  "as  for 
the  catechism  and  the  book  of  articles  ...  he  granted  the  same  to 
be  his  doings,"  but  the  formal  Processus  contra  Thoniam  Cranmer 
(Works,  Parker  Society's  edition,  vol.  ii.  p.  545),  gives  a  very 
different  representation  :  "  Ad  septimum  fatetur  se  edidisse  librum 
.  .  .  A  defence  of  the  true  and  Catholic  faith,  etc. — et  negat  se 
edidisse  librum,  in  eodem  articulo  etiam  mentionatum,  vocatum — 
A  discourse  of  Peter  Martyr — et  quoad  tertium  librum  vocatum, 
A  discourse  of  the  Lord's  Supper  \l)y  Peter  Marty  r'\  negat  se  ilium 
edidisse,  tamen  credit  hujusmodi  liber  est  bonus  et  catholicus,  et 
quoad  catechismum  et  articulos  in  eodem  fatetur  se  adhibuisse  ejus 
consilium  circa  editionem  ejusdem."  The  word  ejus  can  refer 
only  to  Martyr.  Archdeacon  Ilardvvick,  Ijy  quoting  merely  the 
last  clause,  has  failed  to  bring  out  this,  though  correcting  Foxe. 


Introihictory  History  of  Doctrine.   341 


Edwardian  Article,  inserting  here  and  there  within 
brackets  the  analogous  phrases  which  Martyr  uses 
when  more  fully  explaining  his  definition,  that  it 
may  be  seen  how  very  closely  his  ideas  and  modes 
of  expression  appear  to  be  reproduced  in  the 
Latin  form  of  that  Article : — 


Martyr's  Definition. 

Dico  igitur  praedestinatio- 
nem  esse  sapientissimum  pro- 
positum  Dei, quo  ante  omnem 
iEternitatem  [nfite  jacta  fitn- 
damciita  m2indi,\\  i  )decrevit 
constanter  {suo  coiisilio  licet 
fiobis  occulta,  459)  eos  quos 
dilexit  in  Christo  [a  calami- 
tate  libcrare,  431  [atque  ut] 
vasa  in  Jionorcm  facta,  428) 
ad  felicitatem  [ccternam  salu- 
tem,  433)per  Christum  addu- 
cere,  431. 

[tanto  Dei  beneficio,  344, 
dojiatos,  343)  vocare  ad 
adoptionem  filiorum  {^justo 
tempore,  473)  [vocatioite, 
quam  Augustinus  ex  Pauli 
phrasi  vocat,  secundum  pro- 
posit  um,  426)  ad  justificatio- 
nem  ex  fide  [gratis  per 
Christum  justificare  ut  effi- 
ciantur  conformes  imagini 
filii  Dei,  .  .  .  utque  ambulent 
in  bonis  operibus,  421,  utque 
in  illis  declaratur  gloria  et 
7nisericordia  Creatoris,  {ad 
vitam  ceternam  {cEternain 
felicitatem,  431)  electos  ad- 
diicit,  434.) 


Latin  Article  of  1553. 

Praedestinatio  ad  vitam  est 
aeternum  Dei  propositum, 
quo  ante  jacta  mundi  funda- 
menta,  suo  consilio,  nobis 
quidem  occulto,  constanter 
decrevit  eos  quos  [  ] 

elegit  ex  hominum  genere,  a 
maledicto  et  exitio  liberare, 
atque  ut  vasa  in  honorem 
efficta,  per  Christum  ad  aeter- 
nam  salutem  adducere. 


Unde  qui  tarn  praeclaro  bene- 
ficio sunt  donati,  illi  Spiritu 
ejus  opportuno tempore  oper- 
ante,  secundum  propositum 
ejus  vocantur,  vocation!  per 
gratiam  parent  (credunt  A) 
justificantur  gratis,  adoptan- 
tur  in  filios  unigeniti  Jesu 
Christi  imagini  efficiuntur 
conformes,  in  bonis  operibus 
sancte  ambulant,  et  demum 
ex  Dei  misericordia  pertin- 
gunt  ad  sempiternam  felici- 
tatum. 


342    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

The  definition  of  Martyr  is  more  brief  than  that 
of  the  Articles,  but  even  so  it  contains  the  words 
in  C/u'isto,  which  were  only  inserted  in  the  Article 
in  1563,  and  are  generally  to  be  found  in  the  Re- 
formed Confessions.  It  is  only  when  we  take 
account  of  the  analogous  phrases  in  which  Martyr 
explains  his  definition,  that  the  full  coincidence  in 
meaning  and  phraseology  between  him  and  the 
Article  is  brought  out.  In  fact,  there  are  but  two 
phrases  wanting  to  make  the  verbal  parallel  com- 
plete, and  they  are  both  found  in  the  definition  of 
Bucer:  ex  iinivcrso  pcniitoriun  Jioniintuii  gcnere, 
and  unigcniti  filii} 

The  parallel,  therefore,  so  far  as  the  positive 
statement  of  doctrine  is  concerned,  is  complete, 
and  whatever  wider  meaning  we  may  deem  our- 
selves warranted  to  read  into  the  Article,  we  can 
never  surely  be  warranted  to  exclude  that  which 
Martyr  held  and  meant  to  teach.  Even  the  sub- 
sequent part  of  the  Article  is  far  more  nearly 
in  verbal  agreement  with  his  teaching  than  with 
that  of  any  other.  There  is  no  such  resemblance 
to  the  phraseology  and  teaching  of  Melanchthon 
after  he  ceased  to  be  an  Augustinian  and  became 
a  Synergist.  There  is  in  a  few  instances,  as  Dr. 
Burton  (Bishop  Short's  History,  p.  487)  had  pointed 
out,  a  verbal  coincidence  with  the  phraseology  and 
teaching  of  Luther  in  his  treatise  on  the  Epistle  to 
1  See  p.  337. 


Introductory  History  of  Doctrine.  343 

the  Romans.  But  that  treatise  was  written  while 
both  Luther  and  Melanchthon  were  Augustinians, 
and  teaches  distinctly  Augustinian  doctrine ;  and 
as  it  was  never  formally  disavowed  by  Luther, 
there  was  considerable  temptation  to  those  who 
maintained  that  doctrine  to  use  the  testimony  of 
the  master  against  his  disciples.  Still,  however, 
in  this  second  part  of  the  Article,  as  in  the  first, 
the  resemblance  to  the  teaching  of  Martyr  is 
closer. 

I  insert  below  these  further  coincidences,  as  also 
a  few  between  the  phraseology  of  Calvin  ^  in  the 
1 543  edition  of  his  Institutions,  and  the  concluding 
part  of  the  Article,  because  it  comes  so  close  to 
that  of  the  Article  and  of  Luther.  Some  suppose 
that  part  was  inconsistent  with  his  doctrine,  but 
if  so,  neither  he  nor  the  Westminster  divines  seem 
to  have  been  aware  of  the  inconsistency : — 

Non     igitur    ad    despera-  Quemadmodiim     pr^edes- 

tionem  adigimurhac  doctrina  tinationis  et  electionis  nostric 

sed  miilto  potius  magnam  ex  in  Christo  pia  considcratio, 

ea    consolationem    accipim-  dulcis,   suavis   et    ineffabilis 

us  (407).     De  perseverantia  consolationis  plena  est  vere 

nullo  modo  dubitandum  est,  piis,  et  his  qui  sentiunt  in  sc 

et  pr^esertim  cum  in  cordibus  vim     Spiritus     Christi    facta 

nostris     habemus     Spiritum  carnis  et  membra  qujE  adhuc 

Sanctum  nobis  ferentem  prae-  sunt   super   terram,    mortifi- 

clarum    de   ea    testimonium  cantem,      animumque       ad 

(124).  Habent  enim  Spiritum  celestiaetsupernarapientem. 

Christi  quo  et  vivunt  et  .  .  .  tum  quia  fidem  nostram  de 

mortificant   facta   carnis  {in  aeterna   salute   consequenda 

^  See  Note  L  in  Appendix. 


344    T^^^  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 


prcFfatione).  Dei  Spiritus 
qui  datur  piis  .  .  .  miram 
consolationem  his  affert  quos 
afflaverit  (electis  in  margijie) 
(476). 

Cum  scribit  de  prasdestina- 
tione  eo  semper  spectat  ut 
nostram  fiduciam  confirmet 
(419)  (ad  stabiliendam  fidu- 
ciam Cal.  361).  Qui  in 
animo  vere  sentiat  se  gratis 
a  Deo  electum  esse  prop- 
ter Christum  .  .  .  mirablHter 
haud  dubie  accendetur  ad 
Deum  redamandum  (419). 
Curiosuh  iUi  habenis  coer- 
cendi  sunt  qui  antequam 
Christum  .  .  .  discantabys- 
sum  illam  praedestinationis 
scrutantur,  et  num  praedes- 
tinati  sint  necne  frustra  in- 
vestigant.  Nam  hi  haud 
dubie  in  confusionem  con- 
scientias  aut  desperationem 
sua  hac  inepta  curiositate 
ducent  et  praecipitabunt 
seipsos. — Lutherus  in  Ep. 
ad  Romanes.  Traduntur  Sa- 
tanae  decipiendi  et  praecipi- 
tandi  (475).— Martyr. 


per  Christum,  phirimum 
stabiHt  atque  confirmat,  tum 
quia  amorem  nostrum  in 
Deum  vehementer  accendit. 

— ArTICULUS   XVII. 

Ubi  crucem  et  tribulation- 
em  expertus  fueris ;  tum 
primum  dulcescet  necessitas 
haec  praedestinationis,  tum 
primum  senties  .  .  .  quam 
plena  consolationis  sit  pr^e- 
destinatio. — Lutherus  in  Ep. 
ad  Romanos. 


Ita  hominibus  curiosis 
carnahbus  et  Spiritu  Christi 
destitutis,  ob  oculos  perpetuo 
versari  praedestinationis  Dei 
sententiam.perniciosissimum 
est  praecipitium,  unde  illos 
diabolus  protrudit  vel  in 
desperationem  vel  in  aeque 
perniciosam  impurissimae 
vitas  securitatem. — Art.xvii. 


Quemadmodum  in  exitialem  abyssum  se  ingurgitant,  (in 
ultimum  mortis  praecipitium  ruunt,  (364)  in  majorem  hebe- 
tudinem  truduntur,  (366)  solutam  carnis  securitatem,  (363) 
quasi  desperata  nequitia  volutabuntur  in  flagitia  (365)  quiut 
de  sua  electione  fiant  certiores,  aeternum  Dei  consilium, 
sine  verbo,  percontantur :  ita  qui  recte  atque  ordine  eam 
investigant,  qualiter  in  verbo  continetur  eximium  inde  re- 
ferunt  consolationis  fructum  (Calv.  Inst.  361). 


Inti^odiictory  History  of  Doctrine.   345 


Hie  docere  oportet,  fide- 
lium  esse  promissiones  Dei 
generaliteraccipere,  ut  nobis 
in  sacris  Uteris  a  Spiritu 
Sancto  traditae  sunt,  neque 
oportere  de  arcana  Dei  volun- 
tate  esse  solicitos  (Martyr, 
p.  194).  Ut  cum  aliquid 
velint  suscipere,  consilium 
.  . .  ex  voluntateDeirevelata, 
i.e,  e  sacra  scriptura  petant, 
non  autem  ex  arcano  divinae 
pra^destinationis  (p.  422). 

In  rebus  agendis  ea  est 
nobis  perspicienda  voluntas 
quam  verbo  suo  declarat.  Id 
requirit  unum  Deus  a  nobis 
quod  priecipit  (Calv.  370). 


Deinde,  licet  pni^dcstina- 
tionis  decreta  sunt  nobis 
ignota,  promissiones  tamcn 
divinas  sic  amplecti  oportet, 
ut  nobis  in  sacris  literis 
generaliter  proposita^  sunt ; 
et  Dei  voluntas  in  nostris 
actionibus  ea  sequenda  est, 
quam  in  verbo  Dei  habemus 
revelatam.— Art.  xvii. 


The  resemblances  between  the  AngHcan  formu- 
lary and  the  Augsburg,  Wiirtemberg,  and  some 
other  German  Confessions  arose  in  part  out  of 
earlier  historical  relations.  But  all  of  them,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  occur  in  Articles  which  were  held 
in  common  by  the  Lutherans  and  the  Reformed. 
Martyr  had  signed  the  Augsburg  Confession  when 
at  Strasburg,  and  was  ready  to  do  so  on  his  return, 
while  some  of  his  colleagues  who  remained  did 
not  object  to  sign  the  Confession  of  Wiirtemberg. 
But  neither  of  these,  nor  any  other  of  the  early 
Lutheran  Confessions,  as  Dorner  admits,  has  an 
Article  on  Predestination.  By  the  insertion  of 
such  an  Article,  as  well  as  by  the  terms  in  which 
they  expressed  it,  the  English  Reformers  must  be 


346    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

regarded  as  indicating  their  leaning  toward  the 
theology  of  Augustine  and  of  the  Reformed  rather 
than  the  Lutheran  Churches.  The  same  leaning 
is  clearly  apparent  in  the  group  of  Articles  on  the 
sacraments,  and  especially  in  the  one  on  the  Lord's 
Supper.  This  last,  in  the  form  in  which  it  was 
set  forth  in  1553,  shows  verbal  coincidences  not 
only  with  Martyr's  writings  but  also  with  the 
Fonmila  Consensus  Tigurini^  copies  of  which  had 
been  sent  into  England  by  BuUinger  soon  after  it 
was  framed. 

Few  Continental  authors  were  during  the  long 
reign  of  Elizabeth  more  highly  esteemed  or  more 
widely  read  in  England  than  Calvin,  Bullinger, 
and  Martyr.  The  Institutions  of  Calvin  were  used 
as  a  text-book  in  the  universities,  and  they  and 
several  of  his  commentaries  were  translated  into 
English.  The  Decades  or  sermons  of  Bullinger 
were  commended  by  Convocation  to  the  study  of 
the  clergy,  and  were  also  translated.  The  volu- 
minous Loci  Communes  of  Martyr  were  published 
in  London  as  well  as  on  the  Continent,  and  he  was 
repeatedly  and  earnesdy  invited  to  return  to  his 
former  chair.  In  a  word,  the  leading  bishops  and 
theologians  of  that  reign  drew  more  closely  to  the 
Reformed  than  to  the  Lutheran  Churches.^    Even 

'  P'or  particulars  see  Appendix,  Note  M. 

2  "  I  am  well  assured  that  the  learned  bishops  who  were  in  the 
reformation  of  our  Church  in  the  beginning  of  Queen  Elizabeth's 
reign  did  so  much  honor  St.  Augustine  that  in  the  collecting  of  the 


Tutroihictory  History  of  Doctrine.   347 

those  of  them  who,  hke  Crannier  and  Ridley  in  the 
earher  time,  were  very  mild  Augustinians  them- 
selves agreed  more  with  the  teaching  of  the  Re- 
formed than  of  the  Lutheran  doctors  on  the  few 
subjects  on  which  there  was  difference  between 
them,  though  the  distinct  testimony  against  the 
ubiquity  of  Christ's  human  nature  was  withdrawn 
from  the  Articles  of  1563.  Becon,  Jewel,  Nowell, 
Sandys,  Pilkington,  as  well  as  Humphreys,  Samp- 
son, and  Foxe,  were  certainly  more  pronounced 
Augustinians,  and,  notwithstanding  assertions  to 
the  contrary,  did  mention  election  for  other  pur- 
poses than  to  warn  people  against  trusting  in  it;^ 
and  their  teaching  supplies  us  with  the  first  and 
perhaps  fairest  commentary  on  the  meaning  of 
the  XVIIth  Article  ere  differences  of  opinion  had 
arisen  respecting  it.  Whitgift,  Hutton,  Overall, 
Cartwright,  Whitaker,  Reynolds,  and  many  of  the 
bishops  and  theologians  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth's 
successor,  held  and  taught  the  same  Augustinian 
doctrines.  It  was  toward  the  close  of  her  reign, 
about  the  year  1595,  that  we  first  hear  of  the  dis- 
tinct enunciation  of  opposite  views  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Cambridge  by  Barret,  a  Fellow  of  Gonville 
and  Caius  College,  who  is  said  soon  after  to  have 

Articles  and  Homilies  and  other  things  in  that  reformation,  they 
had  an  especial  respect  unto  St.  Augustine's  doctrines." — Bishop 
Carleton's  Examination,  p.  49. 

^  See  especially  Sandys'  Se7'inon'i,\t.  190;   rill<ington's  IVorksy 
p,  673;  and  Jewel's  Conimcnfary  on  I  Thess.  i.  4,  5j  and  ii.  13. 


348    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

turned  Papist,  and  Dr.  Baro,  a  Frenchman  who 
had  long  been  Margaret  Professor  of  Divinity, 
and  had  previously  given  utterance  to  sentiments 
on  other  topics  which  were  deemed  not  to  be  in 
strict  harmony  with  the  predominant  opinions. 
To  quiet  the  disturbances  thus  occasioned  Arch- 
bishop Whitgift,  with  the  approval  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  York  and  some  other  prelates,  drew  up 
(or  accepted,  with  a  few  changes  as  drawn  up  by 
another,  and  sent  down  to  the  University  a  series 
of  Articles,  henceforth  to  be  known  as  the  Lambeth 
Articles,  which  were  not  only  predestinarian  in 
tendency,  but  more  strongly  so  than  would  be  rel- 
ished by  moderate  Calvinists  still.  The  Articles 
were  not  indeed  confirmed  by  royal  authority, 
but  they  were  acted  on  by  the  authorities  of  the 
University,  and  at  any  rate  they  are  of  value  as  a 
distinct  testimony  to  the  views  of  their  framers 
and  as  a  clear  indication  of  the  opinions  on  these 
abstruse  subjects  which  were  then  widely  preva- 
lent in  the  Church.  Dr.  Reynolds  asked  at  the 
Hampton  Court  Conference  that  these  "  orthodoxal 
assertions  "  should  be  added  to  the  Articles  not  as 
altering  their  meaning  but  simply  as  more  clearly 
expressing  it.  This  was  not  granted,  his  Majesty 
deeming  it  better  "  not  to  stuff  the  book  [of  the 
Articles]  with  all  conclusions  theological,"  but  "  to 
punish  the  broachers  of  false  doctrine  as  occasion 
should  be  offered,  for  were  the  Articles  never  so 


Introciuctojy  History  of  Doctrine.   349 

many  and  sound,  who  can  prevent  the  contrary 
opinions  of  men  till  they  be  heard  ?"  Overall,  the 
Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  expressed  himself  in  substantial 
agreement  with  Dr.  Reynolds  as  to  the  meaning 
of  the  XVIth  and  XVIIth  Articles,  and  the  King 
also  made  more  than  one  "  speech  of  predestina- 
tion and  reprobation,"  in  the  course  of  which  he 
admitted  that  predestination  and  election  depended 
"  not  upon  any  qualities,  actions,  or  works  of  man 
wJiicJi  be  mutable^  but  upon  God's  eternal  and 
iniuuitable  decree  and  purposed  So  much  we  learn 
from  Barlow's  Sum  of  the  Conference  (p.  43).  From 
Bishop  Carleton's  Examination  of  Bishop  Mon- 
tague's notorious  Appeal  u)ito  CcBsar  (p.  94),  we 
further  learn :  "  The  plain  truth  is  that  Dr.  Rey- 
nolds repeated  the  Article,  and  professed  that  the 
meaning  of  the  Article  was  sound."  He  only  de- 
sired that  to  the  end  of  the  clause  "  we  may  depart 
from  grace  "  the  words  "  yet  not  totally  nor  finally  " 
might  be  added.  "Against  this  no  man  spake 
then  ;  but  for  it.  .  .  .  Dr.  Overall  did  speak  so 
much  as  directly  confirmed  that  which  Dr.  Rey- 
nolds had  moved,  .  .  .  adding  hereunto  that  those 
who  were  called  and  justified  according  to  the 
purpose  of  God's  election,  however  they  might 
and  did  fall  into  grievous  sins,  .  .  .  yet  did  never 
fall  either  totally  from  all  graces  of  God  to  be 
utterly  destitute  of  all  the  parts  and  seed  thereof, 
nor  finally  from  justification." 


350    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

What  had  been  refused  to  the  Puritans  in  1603 
was  granted  to  the  Irish  Convocation  in  161 5.  It 
was  allowed  to  incorporate  the  Lambeth  Articles 
among  those  fuller  Augustinian  Articles,  which, 
with  the  sanction  of  the  Viceroy,  it  then  adopted 
and  enjoined  to  be  subscribed  by  all  preachers  as 
articles  not  to  be  contradicted  by  them  in  their 
public  teaching.  In  16 18,  when  deputies  were, 
with  the  approval  of  Archbishop  Abbot,  sent  by 
King  James  to  the  Synod  of  Dort,  it  is  said  that 
they  took  these  Lambeth  Articles  with  them  to 
the  Synod  as  evidence  of  the  faith  professed  in 
England.  The  deputies,  who  were  all  men  of  high 
standing^  in  the  Church,  took  an  active  part  in  the 
proceedings  of  the  Synod,  acquiesced  in  the  con- 
demnation of  the  Arminians,  and  in  the  various 
papers  drafted  by  them  gave  representations  of  the 
doctrine  of  their  Church  which  would  have  been 
quite  unwarrantable  if  the  prevailing  interpretation 
of  her  Articles  down  to  that  date  had  not  been 
decidedly  Augustinian.  The  most  notable  of  the 
divines  who  in  the  later  years  of  Queen  Elizabeth's 
reig-n  defended  the  constitution  of  the  English 
Church  so  resolutely  against  the  assaults  of  the 
more  decided  Puritans,  held  to  the  Augustinian 
system  of  doctrine,  as  Archbishop  Whitgift, 
Richard  Hooker,  and  Thomas  Rogers.     The  last 

^  Bishop  Carleton,  Drs.  Goad,  Ward,  Davenant,  and  Hall,  with 
Dr.  Balcanquhal  for  Scotland. 


Introductory  History  of  Doctrine.   351 

named  was  chaplain  to  Whitgift's  successor,  and, 
so  far  as  I  know,  the  first  to  publish  a  formal 
exposition  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  under  the 
title  of  Tlic  Catholic  Doctrine  of  the  Church  of 
Ejiglaiid.  This  treatise,  dedicated  first  to  Whitgift 
and  then  to  Bancroft,  was  well  known  to  Toplady, 
though  ignored  by  recent  expositors.  It  passed 
unchallenged  through  several  editions,  and  affords 
conclusive  evidence  that,  till  near  the  close  of 
James's  reign,  the  Augustinian  interpretation  of 
them  was  the  prevailing  one. 

Even  in  1626  Bishop  Carleton  resolutely  claimed 
that  it  had  been  so,  and  reproved  Bishop  Montague 
for  reviving  the  doctrines  of  Barret  and  Baro,  and 
venturing  to  speak  of  those  who  maintained  the 
doctrines  of  the  Lambeth  Articles  as  Puritans. 
Ussher,  Downame,  Davenant,  and  Hall  were  all  in 
accord  with  Carleton.  But  the  fashion  then  begun 
soon  spread  rapidly.  Nominally  to  hold  the  bal- 
ance even  between  the  contending  parties,  but 
really,  as  was  alleged  by  the  predestinarian  school, 
to  impede  and  silence  them  while  almost  openly 
favoring  their  opponents,  a  royal  declaration  was 
prefixed  to  the  Articles  prohibiting  the  imposing 
any  other  than  the  grammatical  sense  on  them,  or 
preaching  on  the  controverted  topics.  "  Then 
beoran  that  wonderful  decade  which,  rec^ard  it  as 
we  may,  was  in  truth  a  period  almost  equally  ex- 
ceptional   with    that    which    followed    under    the 


352    The  Westminster  Cojifcssion  of  Faith. 

Commonwealth.  It  was  not  indeed  a  government 
without  church  and  king,  but  it  was  a  government 
of  a  king  without  a  parliament,  and  of  a  church  in 
which  all  doctrines  except  those  of  the  dominant 
party  were  proscribed  and  silenced  by  the  strong 
hand — a  virtual  tyranny  under  honored  forms  and 
names."  *'  The  system  made  its  way  very  rapidly 
among  University  men  and  with  a  section  of  the 
upper  classes  generally ;  two  of  its  most  promi- 
nent tenets,  viz.,  the  divine  right  of  kings  and  the 
divine  right  of  bishops,  expressed  concurrently 
and  with  every  conceivable  form  of  argument, 
forcibly  commended  the  rest  of  the  doctrine  to  the 
pedant  king  and  his  courtiers,  and  it  came  to  be 
identified  almost  from  its  commencement  with  the 
political  repression  of  the  popular  liberties,  the  sus- 
pension of  Parliaments,  and  the  disgrace  of  the 
country  at  home  and  abroad."  ^  In  the  eyes  of 
its  supporters  it  was  a  revulsion  from  what  their 
successors  in  our  own  time  have  nicknamed  Ultra- 
Protestantism — not  an  exchange  of  modern  Cal- 
vinism for  the  more  modern  Arminianism,  but  a 
return  to  the  theology  of  the  Greek  Fathers  in 
preference  to  that  of  Augustine,  the  great  doctor 
of  the  West. 

Down  to  the  time  of  Archbishop  Laud  there 
had  been  almost  a  continuous  succession  of  Au- 

'  Introduction  to  Register-  of  Visitors  of  the  University  of  Ox- 
ford, from  A.  D.  1647  to  A.  D.  1658,  pp.  XX.,  xxiv. 


Introductory  History  of  Doctrine.   353 

gustinian  Professors  of  Divinity  in  the  Universi- 
ties^— Humphrey,  Holland,  Walvvard,  Reynolds, 
Abbot,  Prideaux,  at  Oxford  ;  Whitgift,  Cartwright, 
Hutton,  Overall,  Whitaker,  Davenant,  and  Ward 
at  Cambridge ;  and  Travers,  Ussher,  and  Hoyle 
at  Dublin.  Besides  these  there  was  a  whole  host 
of  men  who  preached  the  same  theology  from  the 
pulpits  or  expounded  it  through  the  press.  T^or- 
eign  theologians,  even  of  extensive  learning  and 
high  repute,  almost,  with  the  single  exception  of 
Heppe,  seem  to  think  that  through  all  this  time 
the  divines  of  Britain  were  doing  nothing  for  their 
science,  either  in  their  own  country  or  on  the 
Continent.  There  could  not  be  a  greater  mistake. 
Just  because  it  was  a  time  of  considerable  restraint, 
it  was  a  time  of  earnest  study  and  of  great  literary 
activity,  and  was  singularly  fruitful  not  only  in 
catechisms  and  other  popular  works  intended  to 
convey  much  prized  truth  to  the  humblest  who 
could  read,  but  also  in  more  learned  treatises, 
which,  though  now  much  forgotten,  were  in  their 
own  day  highly  valued  by  the  learned  in  Holland 
as  well  as  in  England — quite  as  much  so  perhaps 

'  "  Calvin's  enormous  influence  was  felt  quite  as  much  within 
the  Church  as  without  it,  and  indeed  the  idea  of  separation  was 
not  as  yet  entertained  loy  any  large  body  of  men.  It  was  not  till 
the  fatal  violence  of  the  Laudian  School  had  been  fully  developed, 
that  separation  began  to  present  itself  as  a  serious  duty  to  masses 
of  churchmen,  and  nonconformity  or  dissent,  as  we  now  know  it, 
to  have  a  history." — Introduction  to  Register  of  llsilors  of  the 
University  of  Oxford,  p.  xvii. 
23 


354    ^/^^  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

as  the  writings  of  any  contemporary  continental 
authors.     Questions  in  controversy  with  the  Ro- 
manists were  discussed  by  Fulke,  Whitaker,  Cart- 
wright,  and  Reynolds  with  a  thoroughness  and 
learning  which   were  not    excelled,   perhaps    not 
equalled,    abroad.       Commentaries    on     separate 
books  of  Scripture,  both    more    systematic   and 
more  practical,  were  issued   in   great  abundance, 
and  some  of  them  were  even  translated  into  Latin 
and  printed  on  the  Continent.     The  doctrine  of 
the  Covenants  was  developed  in  this  country  quite 
as  much  as  in  Holland,  particularly  in  its  historical 
aspect  as  bearing  on  the  progress  of  God's  revela- 
tion to  mankind,  and  it  was  generally  combined 
with  the  more  liberal  Augustinian  views  of  Dave- 
nant.      Learned    and    exhaustive    treatises    were 
written  in  defense  of  the  great  Protestant  doctrines 
of  the  supremacy  of  Scripture  and  of  justification 
by  faith,  the  formal  and  material  principles  of  the 
Reformation,  while  the  writings  of  Perkins,  Dave- 
nant,  Ussher,  Amesius,  and  Twisse,  on  the  more 
abstruse    doctrines    of    the    Augustinian    system, 
were    not    less  thorough   nor  less  highly  valued 
abroad  than  at  home.     Twisse  as  well  as  Amesius 
was  invited  to  occupy  a  chair  in  Holland,  and  for 
his    defense    of    the    Augustinian    and    reformed 
teaching  against  the  scicntia  media  of  the  Jesuits, 
Bishop  Hall  characterized  him  as  "  a  man  so  emi- 


Introductory  History  of  Doctrine.   355 

nent  in  school  divinity  that  the  Jesuits  have  felt, 
and  for  aught  I  see,  shrunk  under  his  strength." 

Hoyle,  Tuckney,  and  Arrowsmith,  who,  after 
the  reformation  of  the  Universities  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  became  Professors  of  Divinity  there, 
served  themselves  heirs  to  their  Augustinian  pre- 
decessors, and  professed  their  determination  to 
teach  on  the  same  lines,  so  that,  as  a  modern 
historian  has  expressed  it,  "  they  deemed  their 
mission  to  be  to  restore  and  confirm,  not  to  revolu- 
tionize." To  a  large  proportion  of  those  university 
men  into  whose  hands  the  task  was  committed,  we 
are  told  by  the  present  Chichele  Professor  of 
History,  in  his  able  and  impartial  introduction  to 
Tlic  Register  of  t lie  Parliamentary  Visitation,  lately 
printed  for  the  Camden  Society,  "  this  gov^ernment 
on  so-called  Puritanical  principles  appeared  very 
much  in  the  light  of  a  return  to  better  days  which 
had  passed  away  not  so  very  long  before,  ...  a 
natural  reaction,  though  perhaps  carried  too  far, 
from  an  extreme  direction  into  which  the  course 
of  their  beloved  University  had  been  betrayed,  a 
recovery  from  a  disease  which,  during  the  process 
of  recovery,  must  necessarily  exhibit  some  abnor- 
mal symptoms."  As  Dr.  Arrowsmith,  in  his  intro- 
ductory lecture  at  Cambridge,  professed  himself  an 
admiring  pupil  of  Davenant,  and  sought  to  link  on 
his  teaching  to  that  of  his  great  predecessors,  so 
Dr.  Hoyle  "  devoted  a  large  part  of  his  inaugural 


356    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

lecture  at  Oxford  to  the  earnest  commendation  of 
Bishop  Prideaux,  and  Dr.  Conant,  who  succeeded 
him,  was  avowedly  of  Prideaux's  school  on  all 
essential  points  "  (pp.  xxix.,  xxx.) 

Turning  now  to  our  own  part  of  Britain,  let  me 
endeavor  as  succinctly  as  possible  to  trace  the 
development  of  theology  in  Scotland.  So  far  as 
we  had  a  theology  before  the  Reformation,  it  was 
probably  less  pronouncedly  Augustinian  than  that 
of  the  southern  division  of  the  island.  No  doubt 
there  were  in  the  Augustinian  and  Dominican 
monasteries  not  a  few  who  clung  to  the  teaching 
of  the  great  doctor  of  the  West,  and  ultimately 
found  a  congenial  home  in  the  Reformed  Church. 
There  are  not  wanting  some  traces  of  the  same 
teaching  in  the  one  catechism  the  pre-reformation 
Church  of  Scotland  ventured  to  issue.  The  works 
of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  were,  by  the  Council  of 
1549,  recommended  to  the  students  and  teachers 
of  speculative  theology,  but  it  could  not  be  that 
those  of  his  rival  should  be  altogether  neglected 
in  the  land  of  his  birth.  John  Major,  its  most 
distinguished  theological  teacher  in  the  first  half 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  if  one  may  venture  to 
express  an  opinion  from  a  cursory  examination  of 
his  commentaries  on  the  Gospels,  appears  to  have 
far  more  in  common  with  Scotus  than  with 
Aquinas  or  Augustine.  But  among  those  who 
favored  the  Reformation,  the  tendency  was  decid- 


Introduciiv^y  History  of  Doctrine.   357 

cdly  in  the  opposite  direction.  It  has  been  said, 
indeed,  that  our  earhest  Protestant  theology  was 
"  of  the  milder  Lutheran  type."  But  at  the  time 
when  Patrick  Hamilton  was  brought  into  contact 
with  it,  Lutheranism  was  not  yet  of  the  milder  type 
it  ultimately  assumed.  Luther  and  Melanchthon 
were  at  that  date  predestinarians  and  pronounced 
Augustinians ;  and  Tyndale,  Frith,  and  Lambert, 
with  whom  during  his  stay  at  Marburg,  Hamilton 
is  believed  to  have  held  familiar  intercourse,  were 
also  decided  adherents  of  the  same  school  of  theo- 
logical thought.  Those  with  whom  Wishart  was 
brought  into  contact  in  Switzerland  and  Strasburg 
belonged  to  the  same  school,  and  he  told  his  coun- 
trymen, when  he  translated  for  their  use  the  earlier 
Helvetic  Confession,  that  it  was  in  the  Church  of 
Switzerland  that  "  all  godliness  is  received,  and  the 
word  had  in  most  reverence."  The  position  of  Knox, 
Winram,  and  their  coadjutors  is  sufficiently  deter- 
mined by  the  fact  that^the  several  confessions  they 
composed  or  sanctioned  were  all  of  the  Calvinistic 
type,  and  in  part  were  borrowed  from  the  earlier 
editions  of  the  Institutes  of  Calvin,  or  from  the 
confessions  drawn  up  by  him.^  It  is  also  con- 
clusively determined  by  the  fact  that  in  1566,  at 
the  request  of  Beza,  they  gave  their  approbation 
to  the  later  Helvetic  Confession,  to  testify  their 
agreement  in  doctrine  and  polity  with  the  Reformed 

1  British  ami  Foreign  Evangelical  Review  for  1872,  pp.  92-95. 


358    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

Churches  on  the  Continent  who  adhered  to  the 
teaching  of  Calvin  and  BuUinger.  From  the  pen 
of  our  great  Reformer  we  have  a  treatise  "  Of  Pre- 
destination," and  a  preface  to  a  treatise  by  his 
friend  Bahiaves  on  justification,  and  both  treatises 
are  in  harmony  with  the  teaching  of  the  Genevan 
school.  The  most  eminent  of  the  early  theological 
teachers  of  the  Reformed  Church  of  Scotland  was 
undoubtedly  Andrew  Melville,  who  was  succes- 
sively Principal  of  the  College  of  Glasgow  and 
of  St.  Mary's  College,  St.  Andrews.  From  his 
known  temperament,  it  might  have  been  supposed 
that  he  would  have  taken  up  an  extreme  position 
in  regard  to  the  distinctive  teaching  of  the  school 
to  which  he  belonged.  But  from  his  commentary 
on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  it  appears  that  his 
views  on  the  mysterious  subject  of  predestination 
were,  like  his  views  on  justification,  of  a  more 
moderate  type  than  those  of  Beza.  He  seems 
to  have  imbued  his  more  distinguished  pupils  to 
a  large  extent  with  his  own  infralapsarian  views. 
Robert  Bruce,  to  whom  the  more  zealous  section 
of  them  looked  up  with  reverence  and  affection, 
certainly  held  and  taught  the  same  type  of  doc- 
trine as  his  teacher.  Principal  Rollock,  of  Edin- 
burgh, the  leader  of  the  more  compliant  section, 
did  the  same.  His  commentaries  were  published, 
some  of  them  repeatedly,  on  the  Continent  as  well 
as  in  his  own  country,  and  his  views  on  the  sub- 


Introditctoi^y  History  of  Doctrine.  359 

jcct  of  the  covenants  and  of  justification  appear  to 
agree  generally  with  those  of  the  Herborne  school. 
Robert  Howie,  who  succeeded  Andrew  Melville 
in  St.  Mary's  College,  as  his  early  and  close  con- 
nections with  the  liberal  theologians  of  Herborne 
and  Basle  leads  one  to  expect,  belonged  to  the 
same  infralapsarian  school.  Several  of  his  theo- 
logical tractates  were  published  at  Basle — the 
most  important  being  that  Dc  rcconcitiatione  Jioiii- 
inis  cum  Deo.  He  was  largely  consulted  in  the 
preparation  of  that  Confession  of  Faith  by  which, 
in  1616,  it  appears  to  have  been  intended  to  super- 
sede both  the  Confession  of  1560,  and  the  so- 
called  negative  Confession  of  1581.  Melville,  be- 
fore he  was  translated  to  St.  Andrews,  taught 
theology  in  Glasgow,  and  was  succeeded  in  his 
office  there  by  Principal  Smeton,  a  man  almost  as 
learned  and  quite  as  moderate  in  his  views — to 
whom  we  are  indebted  for  a  brief  but  able  defense 
of  the  Protestant  idea  of  the  Church  and  a  vindi- 
cation of  the  personal  character  of  Knox,  in  reply 
to  the  bitter  and  one-sided  treatise  of  Archibald 
Hamilton,  Dc  coiifusionc  Caiviniance  Sccta. 
Smeton  was  succeeded  in  1585  by  Patrick  Scharpe, 
and  he,  in  161 5,  by  Robert  Boyd,  who  had  taught 
in  France,  and  was  the  author  of  a  learned  com- 
mentary on  the  Fpistle  to  the  Ephesians,  in  which 
predestinarian  views  are  clearly  enunciated,  and 
Augustine,   Ambrose,    Prosper,    Fulgentius,   and 


360    The  Westminster  Co7ifession  of  Faith. 

Bernard  are  more  frequently  appealed  to  than 
Calvin  and  the  Reformers.  Boyd,  on  his  transla- 
tion to  Edinburgh,  was  succeeded  by  John  Cam- 
eron, the  Camero  of  the  Continent,  who  was  born 
in  the  Saltmarket ;  was  first  a  regent  at  Glasgow, 
then  at  Sedan  ;  then,  along  with  his  countryman 
Primrose,  pastor  of  the  Church  at  Bordeaux  ;  after 
that  a  Professor  of  Theology  at  Saumur,  then 
Principal  in  Glasgow  College.  In  little  more  than 
a  year  he  returned  to  France,  and  died  there  at  the 
age  of  forty-six.  He  was  greatly  esteemed  both 
in  England  and  France.  He  was  one  of  the  ear- 
liest defenders  of  that  theory  of  the  will  which  was 
afterwards  espoused  by  Jonathan  Edwards,  and, 
after  Bullinger,  he  was  the  most  active  asserter  of 
that  milder  system  of  predestinarianism  which 
early  in  the  seventeenth  century  found  consider- 
able acceptance  both  in  France  and  in  England. 
It  was  earnestly  advocated  in  the  former  by  Amy- 
raut  (with  whose  name  it  has  been  associated),  and 
in  the  latter  by  Overall,  Davenant,  Ussher,  and 
many  others.  Several  of  his  treatises  were  pub- 
lished separately ;  one  at  least,  in  defense  of  the 
Protestant  idea  of  the  Church  against  the  Romish, 
was  translated  into  English  and  published  at  Ox- 
ford. At  the  request  of  a  synod  of  the  French 
Reformed  Church,  his  works  were  collected  and 
edited  by  Capellus  and  Amyraut,  and  passed 
through  three  editions.     Principal   Strang  seems 


hitroihtctoi^y  History  of  Doctrine.   361 

to  have  followed  somewhat  in  the  wake  of  Cam- 
eron;  at  least  he  was  charged  with  "withdrawing 
from  the  divine  decree  the  act  and  entity  of  sin  ;  " 
but  even  the  cautious  Baillie,  who  thought  "  he 
swayed  too  much  to  one  side,"  prized  the  man's 
"  ingyne  and  learning,"  and  was  disposed  to  re- 
gard him  as  one  of  the  best  scholars  in  the  Re- 
formed Church.  Dr.  John  Forbes,  the  learned 
Professor  of  Theology  in  King's  College,  Aber- 
deen, almost  continuously,  from  1620  to  1643, 
taught  the  same  system  of  moderate  predestin- 
arianism,  and,  like  Boyd,  appealed  to  Augustine 
and  Prosper  quite  as  much  as  to  Calvin.  His 
doctrinal  teaching  was  very  highly  approved  in 
Holland,  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  was  never  called 
in  question  in  his  own  country,  but  he  was  ulti- 
mately deposed  for  refusing  to  take  the  Covenant. 
Dr.  John  Sharp,  or  Scharpius,  who  in  1606  had 
been  banished  for  taking  part  in  the  Assembly  at 
Aberdeen,  taught  theology  for  a  number  of  years 
at  Die  in  Dauphine.  In  16 10  he  published  a 
treatise  on  justification,  and,  in  16 18,  a  system  of 
theology  under  the  title  of  Ciirsus  Tlicologicus.  It 
was  dedicated  to  King  James,  and  having  made 
his  peace  with  him  or  with  Charles,  he  was  in 
1630  appointed  Professor  of  Theology  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Edinburgh,  in  succession  to  James 
Fairley,  afterward  Bishop  of  Argyll.  Pie  was  in 
all    probability    the   chief  theological    teacher  of 


362    TJie  Westminstei^  Confession  of  Faith. 

Robert  Leighton,  whose  father's  opinions  in  his 
early  Hfe  he  had  shared.  Dr.  Sharp  continued  to 
hold  his  office  through  these  unquiet  times  up  to 
1647,  when  he  died.  He  seems  to  have  taken  a 
keen  interest  in  the  changes  which  took  place  on 
the  restoration  of  Presbytery,  and  to  have  con- 
tributed largely  toward  the  support  of  the  Scotch 
army  in  England.  His  Cnrsus  TJieologiais  passed 
through  at  least  three  editions,  all  of  which  were 
published  on  the  Continent.  His  Syinphonia 
Prophctarnni  et  Apostolorimi  was  also  published 
abroad,  and  passed  through  two  or  more  edi- 
tions. 

In  their  revulsion  from  the  Arminianism  and 
sacerdotalism  of  the  younger  bishops  who  had 
been  so  zealously  patronized  by  Laud,  the  Coven- 
anting ministers  of  Scotland  generally  favored  a 
more  decided  Calvinism  than  that  of  Cameron, 
Forbes,  and  Strang,  or  than  that  of  Davenant, 
Ussher,  and  their  Puritan  disciples  in  the  south. 
Some  of  them,  like  Rutherfurd,  even  favored  the 
supralapsarian  view,  and  resolutely  defended  it, 
though  they  granted  that  the  questions  in  which 
they  differed  from  their  brethren  were  questions 
to  be  discussed  in  the  schools  rather  than  to  be 
determined  in  a  Confession  of  Faith. ^  A  very 
remarkable  discussion  on  Arminianism  occurred 

'  Baillie's  Letters,  yoX.  iii.  p.  6;  Mhiutes  of  VVesiniinster  As- 
sembly, p.  Iv, 


Iiitrodtutoiy  History  of  Doctrine.   363 

in  the  Glasgow  Assembly  in  1638/  The  ablest 
and  most  fully  reported  speech  was  that  of  Mr. 
David  Dick  or  Dickson,  afterward  Professor  of 
Divinity,  first  at  Glasgow  and  then  at  Edinburgh. 
If  any  one  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is 
a  wide  difference  between  the  tone  and  temper 
in  which  the  controversy  is  treated  in  the  works 
of  the  theologians  above  referred  to,  and  in  the 
speech  of  Mr.  Andrew  Ramsay  in  Assembly  1638 
he  may  be  asked  to  bear  in  mind  that  he  as  well 
as  they  had  been  a  professor  under  the  episcopal 
regime,  and  remained  to  the  last  but  an  indifferent 
Covenanter. 

Besides  the  contributions  of  these  scholars  to  the 
illustration  and  defense  of  the  doctrines  of  grace 
and  to  the  exposition  of  the  Scriptures  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  principles  of  Augustine  and 
Calvin,  there  were  several  Scotch  divines  who 
distinguished  themselves  by  their  works  in  the 
department  of  Church  history  and  Church  con- 
stitution. I  mention  first  the  family  of  the 
Symsons,  five  of  whom  were  ministers  of  the 
Church,  one  of  whom,  while  a  minister  in  France, 
published  a  brief  but  interesting  tractate  on  the 
spuriousness  of  the  so-called  Clementine  Epistle 
to  James ;  another,  larger  treatises  on  the  in- 
ternal and  external  history  of  the  Church,  the 
latter  of  which    was    recast    and    republished   in 

^  Peterk ill's  Records  of  the  Kirk,  pp.  156-159. 


364    The  Westminster  Confcssioji  of  Faith. 

London ;  a  third,  besides  other  works,  compiled 
a  chronicle  on  the  ecclesiastical  history  of  Scot- 
land, which  has  never  yet  seen  the  light.  These 
Symsons  were  the  nephews,  and  the  church 
historian  was  also  the  name-son,  of  Patrick 
Adamson,  of  St,  Andrews,  the  accomplished 
scholar  whose  sad  story  is  one  of  the  most  mourn- 
ful episodes  in  the  history  of  the  Scottish  Church. 
Even  one  who  regards  his  policy  as  a  blunder  and 
his  compliance  with  the  humor  of  the  Court  as 
a  huge  mistake,  cannot  but  feel  sorry  for  the  great 
scholar,  who  had  given  to  the  Church  an  elegant 
Latin  prose  version  of  the  Confession  of  1560,  and 
a  nmch-lauded  metrical  Latin  version  of  Calvin's 
catechism,  and  who  in  old  age  was  so  heartlessly 
abandoned  by  the  sovereign  he  had  sacrificed  so 
much  to  serve.  In  the  department  of  Church 
constitution,  David  Calderwood  stands  decidedly 
pre-eminent.  His  Altare  Dajnasccnuui  —  the 
great  armory  from  which  the  Presbyterians  after 
1637 — Gillespie,  Rutherfurd,  and  Baillie — drew 
their  weapons  for  the  conflict  with  prelatists  and 
sectaries,  is  by  far  the  most  exhaustive  and 
learned  defense  of  Presbytery  which  Scotland  has 
produced,  and  is  said,  by  its  massive  learning  and 
calm  reasoning,  to  have  drawn  a  tribute  of  reluc- 
tant admiration  from  King  James  himself  The 
first  draft  of  it  was  published  in  English  in  1621, 
but   it    was    carefully   revised   and   very   greatly 


Introdtcctory  Histoiy  of  Doctrine.  365 

enlarged,  and  published  in  Latin  in  Holland,  in 
1623.  A  second  edition  of  it  was  published  in 
1708,  and  it  was  not  less  valued  by  the  learned 
divines  of  Holland  than  by  his  own  countrymen. 
Most  of  the  works  previously  referred  to,  it  will 
be  observed,  were  also  published  in  Latin,  and  so, 
while  accessible  to  the  educated  in  their  own 
country,  they  appealed  to  a  far  wider  public,  and 
circulated  in  all  the  Reformed  Churches  of  the 
period.  The  native  Scottish  dialect,  as  it  had 
prevailed  before  the  Reformation,  received  a  rude 
shock  by  that  event.  The  long  residence  of  Knox 
in  England,  and  with  a  congregation  of  English 
exiles  on  the  Continent,  had  necessitated  to  a 
considerable  extent  his  adoption  of  the  "  southern 
tongue,"  and  the  influence  of  this  was  apparent 
in  all  the  formularies  he  prepared  for  the  Scottish 
Church.  The  circulation  of  the  English  Bible 
tended  still  more  than  these  formularies  to  give  a 
certain  currency  to  southern  forms  of  speech. 
Southern  influence  had  told  on  Willock  and  some 
others  of  the  early  Reformed  teachers ;  and  though 
somewhat  later  there  was  a  reaction  for  a  time, 
and,  under  the  Melvilles  especially,  a  purer  Scot- 
tish dialect  was  fostered,  yet  with  the  accession 
of  James  to  the  English  throne  disintegrating 
influences  were  revived  and  intensified.  The 
native  Scottish,  though  then  and  for  long  after 
used  as  the  vehicle  of  oral   instruction,  was   not 


^66    The  Westminster  Confessioji  of  Faith. 

cultivated  as  a  fit  vehicle  for  literary  work,  and 
Scottish  divines  who  wished  to  appeal  to  an 
educated  public  in  literary  form  preferred  to  make 
use  of  the  Latin  tongue.  Many  of  these  divines 
besides,  by  their  long  residence  abroad,  had,  like 
Buchanan,  become  more  at  home  in  it  than  in 
the  unsettled  native  dialect.  During  the  i6th 
and  17th  centuries,  as  Professor  Veitch  has  lately 
told  us,  "there  was  hardly  a  University  on  the 
continent  of  Europe  which  did  not  contain,  we 
might  almost  say  was  not  made  famous  by,  the 
Scottish  regent,  or  Professor  of  Philosophy,  who 
had  learned  his  dialectic  in  his  native  University." 
Not  a  few  of  these,  in  Protestant  Universities,  rose 
from  being  regents  in  philosophy  to  be  professors 
of  theology,  and  naturally  published  in  the  Latin, 
in  which  they  were  first  composed,  their  theses, 
cursus^  and  commentaries.  Several  of  them  ulti- 
mately returned  to  adorn  the  theological  chairs  in 
the  Universities  of  Scotland,  as  Melville,  Smeton, 
Johnston,  Howie,  Boyd,  Sharp,  Weemse,  and  the 
Colvilles,  though  they  still  continued  to  maintain 
friendly  intercourse  with  the  theologians  of  the 
various  schools  on  the  Continent  where  they  had 
studied  or  taught,  and  to  solicit  their  counsel  and 
aid  in  the  publication  of  their  works. 

To  restore  the  faith  held  by  both  Churches 
in  common  at  the  era  of  the  Reformation,  and  to 
replace  Augustinianism   in  its  old  post  of  honor, 


Account  of  its  Preparation.         367 

was  the  main  object  intended  to  be  effected  by 
the  Westminster  Assembly — first  in  revising  the 
Enghsh  Articles,  and  then  in  preparing  those  new- 
doctrinal  standards  of  its  own — the  Confession 
and  Catechisms — with  which  the  future  of  Presby- 
terianism  was  to  be  so  closely  linked. 

And  I  shall  now  proceed  to  lay  before  you  the 
historical  details  regarding  the  preparation  of  this 
Confession.  It  was  on  20th  August  1644,  that  a 
committee  was  appointed  by  the  Assembly  "  to 
prepare  matter  for  a  joint  Confession  of  Faith." 
This  committee  consisted  of  Drs.  Gouge,  Temple, 
and  Hoyle,  Messrs.  Gataker,  Arrowsmith,  Bur- 
roughs, Burgess,  Vines,  and  Goodwin,  together 
with  the  Scotch  Commissioners.  A  fortnight  later, 
Dr.  Smith  and  Messrs.  Palmer,  Newcomen,  Herle, 
Reynolds,  Wilson,  Tuckney,  Young,  Ley,  and 
Sedgewick  were  added  to  the  committee,  or  con- 
stituted an  additional  committee.  Probably  the 
subjects  of  some  of  the  chapters,  or  part  of  the 
matter  which  was  ultimately  embodied  in  the  Con- 
fession, was  selected  or  prepared  by  these  commit- 
tees.^ But  the  digesting  of  the  material  collected 
into  more  formal  shape — a  draft,  as  it  was  tech- 
nically termed — was  on   12th  May  1645  intrusted 

^  Under  date  of  25th  April,  Baillie  writes,  "  The  Catechise  and 
Confession  of  Faith  are  put  in  the  hands  of  several  committees," 
some  reports  are  made  to  the  Assembly  concerning  both,  and  on 
4th  May  he  adds,  "  upon  both  which  we  have  already  made  some 
entrance." 


368    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

to  a  smaller  committee,  consisting  apparently  of 
Drs.  Temple  and  Hoyle,  Messrs.  Gataker,  Harris, 
Burgess,  Reynolds,  Herle,  and  the  Scotch  Com- 
missioners. On  the  7th  July,  "  Dr.  Temple  made 
report  of  that  part  of  the  Confession  of  Faith 
touching  the  Scriptures.  It  was  read  and  de- 
bated," and  the  debate  was  continued  in  several 
subsequent  sessions  of  the  Assembly.  On  the 
following  day  Messrs.  Reynolds,  Herle,  and  New- 
comen  (to  whom,  on  December  8th,  were  joined 
Messrs.  Tuckney  and  Whitaker,  and,  on  17th  July 
1646,  Mr.  Arrowsmith)^  were  appointed  a  com- 
mittee "  to  take  care  of  the  wording  of  the  Con- 
fession," as  its  Articles  should  be  voted  in  the 
several  sessions  of  the  Assembly,  but  according  to 
understood  rule  they  were  to  communicate  with 
the  Scotch  Commissioners  and  to  report  to  the 
Assembly  any  changes  in  the  wording  of  the  sen- 
tences which  they  deemed  necessary,  as  new  prop- 
ositions were  added  on  to  those  previously  passed. 
On  the  nth  July  it  was  ordered  that  the  body  of 
the  Confession,  as  it  is  then  termed— the  heads 
of  the  Confession,  as  it  is  subsequently  entitled — 
should  be  divided  among  the  three  large  com- 
mittees—that is,  as  I  suppose,  that  the  material 
prepared  by  the  previous  small  committee  should 
be  handed  over  to  these  larger  committees,  and 
further  discussed  and  elaborated  by  them  before 
1  Minutes  of  Assembly,  pp.  no,  168,  470. 


Account  of  its  Preparation.  369 

being  brought  into  the  Assembly.  This  order  was 
carried  out  on  the  i6th.  To  the  first  committee 
were  referred  the  materials  on  the  heads,  "  God 
and  the  Holy  Trinity ;  God's  decrees,  predestina- 
tion, election,  etc. ;  the  works  of  creation  and 
providence;  and  man's  fall."  To  the  second  com- 
mittee were  referred  the  materials  on  the  heads  of 
"Sin  and  the  punishment  thereof;  free  will,  the 
covenant  of  grace,  and  Christ  our  Mediator."  To 
the  third  committee  were  assigned  the  materials 
on  the  heads  of  "  Effectual  vocation,  justification, 
adoption,  and  sanctification."  The  committees 
were  directed,  if  they  saw  fit  to  leave  out  any  of 
these  heads  or  to  add  any  other,  to  report  the 
matter  to  the  Assembly.^  A  further  distribution 
of  heads  or  materials  was  made  on  1 8th  Novem- 
ber 1645, on  the  motion  of  Mr.  Whitaker.  To  the 
first  committee  were  referred  the  heads  on  per- 
severance [of  the  saints],  Christian  liberty,  the 
Church,  and  the  communion  of  saints ;  to  the 
second  those  on  the  officers  and  censures  of  the 
Church,  on  councils  or  synods,  the  sacraments, 
baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper ;  and  to  the  third, 
those  on  the  law  of  God,  on  religion,  and  worship. 
A  final  distribution  was  made  on  23d  February 
1645-6,  when  there  were  referred  to  the  first  com- 
mittee the  heads  on  the  Christian  Sabbath,  the 
civil    magistrate,   marriage    and    divorce ;    to    the 

1  Minutes  of  the  Assembly,  pp.  1 12,  1 14. 
24 


370    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

second  those  on  the  certainty  of  salvation,  Hes 
and  equivocation/  and  the  state  of  the  soul  after 
death  ;  and  to  the  third,  those  on  the  resurrection, 
the  last  judgment,  and  life  eternal. 

The  report  on  the  draft  of  the  committee  con- 
cerning God  was  brought  in  and  debated  on  the 
i8th  and  23d  July  1645.  On  the  latter  day  the 
report  on  the  subject  of  the  Trinity  was  also 
brought  in.  On  29th  August,  the  first  committee 
brought  in  their  report  "  of  God's  decree  "  and  the 
second  theirs  "  of  Christ  the  Mediator."  The  dis- 
cussion on  the  former  began  at  once,  and  was 
prosecuted  at  intervals  afterward  very  fully.^ 
The  latter  was  taken  up  on  2d  September,  and 
at  a  number  of  the  subsequent  sessions.  On  8th 
September,  the  quorum  of  each  of  the  three  com- 
mittees was  reduced  to  six,  as  difficulty  had  been 
experienced  in  securing  a  larger  attendance  at 
their  meetings.  The  next  day  Mr.  Prophet 
brought  in  the  report  of  the  third  committee  of 
effectual  calling,  and  the  discussions  on  that  and 
the  two  previous  reports  extended  through  the 
month  of  September.  Before  the  close  of  Novem- 
ber reports  appear  to  have  been  given  in  from 
the  first  Committee  "  of  creation  and  providence," 

^  Tliis  was  probably  merged  in  ^  4  of  the  chapter  of  lawful  oatlis 
and  vows. 

2  See  the  notes  of  these  memorable  debates  from  20lh  to  24th 
October  in  the  printed  Mimites  of  the  Assembly,  pp.  150  to  160, 
and  remarks  on  these  in  Introduction,  p.  liii.,  etc. 


Account  of  its  Preparation.  371 

from  the  second  "  of  the  fall  of  man,  of  sin  and 
the  punishment  thereof,"  and  from  the  third  "  of 
adoption  and  sanctification."  In  the  beginning  of 
December,  Mr.  Cheynell  brought  in  the  report  of 
justification,  and  Dr.  Stanton  and  the  second  com- 
mittee those  on  the  sacraments  in  general,  and  on 
baptism  and  the  Lord's  supper  in  particular,  and 
these  were  debated  and  adjusted  during  that  month 
and  the  one  following.  On  15th  December,  Dr. 
Gouge  brought  in  the  report  "  of  free  will,"  and, 
probably  on  the  19th,  from  the  same  committee, 
that  "  of  perseverance."  A  notable  debate  about 
the  *'  grace  of  baptism  "  took  place  on  the  5th  and 
6th  January.  The  report  from  the  third  com- 
mittee "  of  the  law  of  God  "  was  given  in  by  Dr. 
Wincop  on  ist  January  1645-6,  and  was  discussed 
at  several  sessions  in  the  course  of  that  month. 
The  reports  "  of  lawful  oaths  and  vows,  of 
Christian  liberty,  and  of  church  officers  "  were  all 
brought  in  before  the  close  of  January.  That  on 
Christian  liberty  formed  the  main  subject  of 
discussion  during  February.  During  that  month 
the  report  '*  of  the  communion  of  saints "  was 
also  brought  in.  That  and  the  article  "  of  the 
Church,"  and  especially  the  paragraph  on  the 
headship  of  Christ  and  the  autonomy  of  his 
Church,  formed  the  main  subject  of  debate 
throughout  the  months  of  March  and  April.  The 
reports   *'  of  religious   worship,  and  the  Sabbath 


372    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

day,"  and  "  of  the  civil  magistrate  "  were  given  in 
and  discussed  during  the  same  months,  and  the 
article  on  Christian  liberty  was  also  made  the 
subject  of  further   debate. 

During  the  whole  of  the  summer  and  autumn 
of  1646,  the  completion  of  the  Confession  had 
been  retarded  by  the  differences  which  had  arisen 
between  the  Houses  of  Parliament  and  the  As- 
sembly, regarding  the  right  of  the  office-bearers 
of  the  Church  to  keep  back  from  the  communion 
those  whom  they  deemed  ignorant  or  scandalous, 
and  by  the  differences  which  arose  among  them- 
selves on  matters  of  detail,  when  they  set  them- 
selves to  prepare  full  answers  to  the  Queries  of 
the  House  of  Commons  respecting  theyV/j-  divimnn 
of  church-government.  The  greater  part  of  their 
time  during  the  month  of  May,  and  the  first  half 
of  the  months  of  June  and  July,  was  devoted  to 
the  preparation  of  these  answers.  On  17th  June, 
they  resolved  to  go  over  the  Confession  again,  as 
it  had  now  been  digested  and  arranged  by  the  com- 
mittee appointed  to  methodize  the  several  articles, 
and  to  revise  and  perfect  the  wording  of  them. 
That  their  review  might  be  the  more  thorough 
it  was  resolved  that  it  should  be  made,  not  by 
attempting  to  read  the  whole  over  at  once,  but  by 
reading  it  again  "  in  parts."  To  do  this  formed 
the  main  work  of  the  Assembly  till  4th  December 
1646.     With    respect   to    most   of  the   heads    or 


Account  of  its  Preparation.  '^']2y 

articles  thus  reviewed,  the  minutes  simply  boar 
that  they  were  "  debated  and  ordered,  and  are  as 
follows,"  thoui^h  in  the  MS.  minutes  the  words, 
as  finally  adjusted,  do  not  follow.  But  in  regard 
to  the  heads  of  marriage,  the  civil  magistrate, 
faith,  repentance,  good  works,  certainty  of  salva- 
tion, synods  and  councils,  the  resurrection,  judg- 
ment, and  life  eternal,  which  in  all  probability  had 
only  been  elaborated  and  brought  in  for  the  first 
time  after  the  review  began,  pretty  full  details  are 
embodied  in  the  minutes.  So  far  as  appears  from 
the  minutes,  the  various  articles  of  the  Confession 
were  passed  by  the  Assembly  all  but  unanimously. 
On  some  occasions,  when  dissent  was  indicated 
even  by  one  or  two  of  the  members,  the  wording 
of  the  article  they  objected  to  was  so  modified  as 
to  satisfy  them.  The  main  occasions  on  which 
this  policy  was  not  followed  were  on  4th  Septem- 
ber 1645,  with  regard  to  Dr.  Burgess's  dissent 
from  the  resolution  of  the  Assembly  to  leave  out 
the  word  "  Blessed,"  retained  both  in  the  English 
and  Irish  Articles,  before  the  name  of  the  Virgin 
mother  of  our  Lord;  on  23d  September  1646, 
with  regard  to  Mr.  Whitaker's  dissent  from  the 
wards  "  foreordained  to  everlasting  death ;"  and 
on  2ist  October  1646,  with  regard  to  the  dissent 
of  several  of  the  Independents  from  the  insertion 
in  a  Confession  of  Faith  of  certain  parts  of  §  3, 
chap,  xxiii.     In  regard  to  matters  of  detail,  some 


374    ^^^^  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith, 

close  divisions  seem  to  have  taken  place.  Three 
such  divisions  appear  to  have  taken  place  in  the 
single  session  of  20th  November  1646.  The  only 
one,  however,  of  the  slightest  importance  was  the 
first,  in  which,  by  21  votes  against  17,  an  addition 
concerning  praises  and  thanksgiving,  proposed  by 
Dr.  Burgess,  and  probably  intended  to  be  intro- 
duced after  §  4  of  chap,  xxi.,  was  peremptorily  re- 
jected. At  the  final  reading  of  the  Confession, 
before  it  was  sent  up  to  the  Houses,  at  the  urgent 
request  of  Gillespie,  the  word  "  God  "  was  substi- 
tuted for  "  Christ "  in  three  places  in  the  chapter 
on  the  civil  magistrate,  which  otherwise  might 
have  been  said  incidentally  to  determine  the  ques- 
tion that  he  held  his  office  from  Christ  as  Media- 
tor. Dr.  Burgess,  who  maintained  that  view,  dis- 
sented from  the  change,  and  a  special  incnioranduni 
was  entered  in  their  minutes  that  the  Assembly 
did  not  mean  by  the  change  "  to  determine  the 
controversy  about  the  subordination  of  the  civil 
magistrate  to  Christ  as  Mediator,"  ^  but  simply  to 
leave  it  open  and  both  parties  free  to  hold  their 
respective  opinions  upon  it.  On  17th  August,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  following  proposition  had 
been  affirmed  to  be  true,  though  it  was  resolved 
it  should  not  be  inserted  in  the  Confession  of 
Faith  :  "  Synods  or  councils,  made  up  of  ministers 
and  other  ruling  officers  of  the  Church,  have  not 

1  Minutes,  p.  308. 


Accoiuit  of  its  Preparation.  375 

only  a  directive  power  in  things  ecclesiasticiil,  but 
a  corrective  power  also,  and  may  rescind  an  evil 
sentence  if  adhered  unto  in  any  inferior  Assembly, 
and  excommunicate  such  persons  as  are  otherwise 
incorrigible."  ^ 

While  this  review  of  the  Confession  was  going 
on,  various  Orders  were  sent  down  from  the 
Houses  for  hastening  the  completion  of  it,  and 
particularly  one  on  22nd  July  1646,  "desiring  the 
Assembly  to  hasten  the  perfecting  of  the  Con- 
fession of  Faith  and  the  Catechism,  because  of 
the  great  use  there  may  be  of  them  in  the  King- 
dom, both  for  the  suppressing  of  errors  and  here- 
sies and  for  informing  the  ignorance  of  the  people." 
This  Order  was  accepted  by  the  Assembly  as  an 
indirect  release  from  the  task  of  preparing  elabo- 
rate answers  to  the  queries  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and,  leaving  that  work  meantime  to  be 
unofficially  done  by  the  authors  of  the  Jtis  Divi- 
nuin  Rcgiminis  Ecclesiastici,  they  returned  with 
promptitude  to  the  preparation  of  the  Confession 
of  Faith.  On  i8th  September  there  came  a  fur- 
ther Order  from  the  House  to  send  to  them  the 
Confession  of  Faith,  or  so  much  thereof  as  they 
have  perfected.  Accordingly,  by  the  25th  Sep- 
tember, after  the  15th,  i6th,  17th,  i8th,  and  19th 
chapters  had  been  finally  passed,  it  was  resolved 

^  Minutes,  p.  269. 


-^"j^    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

that  the  first  nineteen  heads  or  chapters/  as  ulti- 
mately passed,  be  sent  up  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. This  was  done  by  a  small  committee  the 
same  day,  and  on  ist  October  a  duplicate  was 
sent  to  the  House  of  Lords.^  On  9th  October 
the  House  of  Commons  had  what  had  been  sent 
up  read  over,  and  ordered  500  copies  of  it  to  be 
printed  for  the  use  of  the  Houses,  and  of  the  As- 
sembly. In  the  following  month  the  House  of 
Lords  had  not  only  read  over  but  passed,  appa- 
rently without  debate,  what  had  been  sent  up  to 
them,  and  urged  the  House  of  Commons  to  do  the 
same,  "  that  the  Protestant  Churches  abroad  as 
well  as  the  people  at  home  may  have  knowledge 
how  that  the  Parliament  did  never  intend  to  inno- 
vate in  matters  of  faith  " — in  other  words  they 
looked  on  the  new  Confession  as  in  substantial 
harmony  with  the  old  Articles.  By  the  4th  De- 
cember 1646  the  Confession  of  Faith  was  finished,^ 
and  on  that  day  it  was  presented  by  the  whole 
Assembly  to  the  House  of  Commons,  and  on 
the  7th  in  the  same  way  to  the  House  of  Lords. 
Thanks   were   returned    by  both   Houses   to  the 

^  On  the  2ist  it  was  resolved  that  "the  several  heads  of  the 
Confession  of  Faith  shall  be  called  by  the  name  of  chapters,  and 
that  the  several  sections  be  distinguished  by  figures  only." — 
Minutes,  p.  286. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  291  ;  Commons'  yournah,  vol.  iv.  p.  677 ;  Lords' 
Journals,  vol.  viii.  p.  505. 

^  It  was  deemed  so  on  26th  Nov.,  but  changes  were  made 
after. 


Account  of  its  Prcpm^atioii.  ^i^^j^j 

Assembly  "  for  their  great  pains  "  in  the  matter, 
and  authority  was  given  to  them  to  print  600 
copies  of  the  whole  treatise  for  the  service  of  the 
two  Houses  and  of  the  Assembly.  Shortly  after, 
a  new  Order  was  made  by  the  House  of  Commons 
that  "  Scripture  proofs  should  be  added  ;"^  and,  on 

^  The  inserting  of  these  proofs,  which  contributed  so  much  to 
give  the  doctrinal  standards  of  the  Assembly  such  a  firm  hold  on 
the  minds  of  the  lay  members  of  the  Church,  was  urged  by  the 
House  of  Commons.  Their  motives,  however,  were  suspected,  and 
the  Order  was  complied  with  by  the  divines  somewhat  reluctantly. 
The  following  copy  of  their  Petition  to  the  House  of  Commons,  in 
answer  to  their  Order,  is  preserved  in  a  recently  recovered  volume 
of  the  records  of  the  Commission  of  the  Scottish  Assembly : — 

"  The  Assemblie  of  Divines  having  received  an  Order  from  this 
hon^c  house,  bearing  date  the  9th  of  October,  that  five  hundred 
copies  of  the  advice  of  the  Assemljlie  of  Divines,  concerning  part 
of  a  Confession  of  Faith  brought  into  this  house  and  no  more,  be 
forthwith  printed  for  the  use  of  the  members  of  both  houses  only, 
and  that  the  Divines  be  desired  to  put  in  the  margent  the  proofs 
out  of  Scripture,  to  confirme  what  they  have  offered  to  the  house 
in  such  places  as  they  shall  think  most  necessarie,  Do  humblie 
represent  that  they  are  willing  and  ready  to  obey  that  Order. 
Nevertheless,  they  humblie  desire  this  hon^^e  house  to  consider 
that  the  reason  why  the  Assembly  have  not  annexed  any  texts  of 
Scripture  to  the  several  branches  of  the  Confession  w«h  are  sent 
up,  wer  not  only  because  the  former  Articles  of  the  Church  of 
England  have  not  any,  but  principally  because  the  Confession 
being  large,  and,  as  we  conceive,  requisite  so  to  be,  to  settle  the 
orthodox  doctrine  according  to  the  word  of  God,  and  the  confes- 
sions of  the  best  reformed  churches,  so  as  to  meet  with  common 
errors,  if  the  Scriptures  should  have  bene  alleadged,  it  would  have 
required  a  volume.  As  also  because  most  of  the  particulars,  being 
received  truths  among  all  churches,  there  was  seldome  any  debate 
about  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  any  article  or  clause,  but  rather 
about  the  manner  of  expression  or  the  fitness  to  have  it  put  into 
the  Confession.  Whereupon  q°  y*"  wer  any  texts  debated  in  the 
Assembly,  they  were  never  put  to  the  vote.     And  therefor  everie 


378    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

29th  April  1647,  a  committee  of  the  Assembly 
further  presented  to  both  the  Houses  the  Con- 
fession of  Faith  with  the  Scripture  proofs  inserted 
in  the  margin ;  and  of  this  also  600  copies  were 
ordered  to  be  printed.  These  three  impressions 
were  printed— ^ot  published — as  *' The    humble 

ADVICE  OF  THE  ASSEMBLY  OF  Dl VINES  NOW  BY 
AUTHORITY  OF  PARLIAMENT  SITTING  AT  WEST- 
MINSTER" (with  the  additions  respectively  follow- 
ing) '*  Concerning  a  part  of  a  Confession  of  Faith  " — 
"  Concerning  a  Confession  of  Faith  " — and  "  Con- 
cerning a  Confession  of  Faith ^  with  the  quotations 
and  texts  of  Scripture  annexed!'  It  was  in  Scotland, 
in  the  autumn  or  before  the  close  of  the  year  1647, 
that  the  first  edition  of  the  Confession,  bearing  the 
title  by  which  it  has  continued  to  be  known,  was 
issued  to  the  public,  and  attempts  seem  to  have 
been  made  to  reprint  this  in  England.  It  was  not 
till  the  summer  of  the  following  year  that  the 
Confession,  with  the  exceptions  of  chapters  xxx. 
and  xxxi.  and  certain  portions  of  chapters  xx. 
and  xxiv.,  was  approved  by  the  English  Parlia- 
ment, and  was  published  in  London  with  the  title, 

text  now  to  be  annexed  must  be  not  only  debated,  but  also  voted 
in  the  Assembly ;  and  it  is  free  for  everie  one  to  offer  what  texts 
he  thinks  fitt  to  be  debated,  and  to  urge  the  annexing  of  Scriptures 
to  such  or  such  a  branch,  as  he  thinks  necessary  w<=ii  is  lyke  to  be 
a  work  of  great  length.  So  that  we  humblie  conceive,  if  it  be  the 
pleasure  of  this  honourable  House  that  we  should  annexe  Scrip- 
tures, it  is  not  possible  that  we  should  forthwith  proceed  to  the 
printing  of  the  Confession," 


Acco2Liii  of  its  Prcpai^ation.  379 

''Articles  of  Christian  Religion  approved  and  passed 
by  both  Houses  of  Parliament  after  advice  had  ivith 
the  Assembly  of  Divines!'  This  title  was  adopted 
because  it  was  in  nearer  agreement  with  that 
of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  and  also  because  the 
treatise  was  not  in  the  direct  form  of  a  Confession, 
/.  e.  with  the  words  "  I  confess,"  "  We  confess,"  or 
some  similar  expression,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
several  chapters  or  sections,  as  in  the  old  Scotch 
and  several  of  the  Continental  Confessions.* 

Before  the  debates  on  the  Confession  came  to  a 
close,  Twisse  and  Henderson,  who  had  been  able 
to  take  but  little  part  in  them,  were  called  to  join 
the  general  assembly  and  church  of  the  first-born 
above.  The  former  died  on  the  morning  of  Sunday, 
19th  July,  and  was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey 
on  the  24th,  but  his  body  was  removed  from  its 
place  of  honorable  sepulture  at  the  Restoration. 
The  latter  died  on  the  19th  August,  worn  out  with 
anxieties  and  incessant  labors  more  than  by  old 
age ;  as  glad,  he  said,  to  be  released  as  ever  school- 
boy was  to  return  from  school  to  his  father's  house. 
He  had  done  a  work  which  his  countrymen  were 
not  to  let  die.  But  his  departure  left  them  for  the 
time  "  dark,  feeble,  and  deploring." 

1  Further  details  respecting  the  Confession  and  the  proceedinsrs 
of  the  English  and  Scottish  Parliaments  on  it  will  be  found  in  the 
notes  appended  to  various  passages  of  the  printed  volume  of  the 
Minutes  of  the  Assembly,  and  particularly  in  that  on  pp.  412-423. 


LECTURE   XI. 

THE  WESTMINSTER    CONFESSION  OF  FAITH    OR  ARTICLES 
OF    CHRISTIAN    RELIGION. 

Part  II. — Its  sources  and  type  of  doctrine  :  ansivcrs 
to  objections  brought  against  it. 

In  my  last  Lecture  I  gave  you  a  brief  sketch  of 
the  development  of  doctrine  in  the  British  Churches 
before  the  meeting  of  the  Westminster  Assembly, 
and  a  pretty  full  account  of  the  proceedings  of 
the  divines  in  preparing  their  Confession  of  Faith. 
To-day  I  am  to  speak  to  you  of  the  sources  and 
character  of  that  Confession,  and  briefly  to  advert 
to  certain  charges  made  against  it. 

It  was  long  the  received  opinion  that  the  As- 
sembly's Confession  was  derived  in  a  great  meas- 
ure from  foreign  sources,  either  Swiss  or  Dutch. 
The  fact  was  overlooked  that  in  Reynolds,  Perkins, 
Whitaker,  Carleton,  Downame,  the  Abbots,  Daven- 
ant,  Overall,  Prideaux,  Ussher,  Hall,  Twisse,  Ames, 
Ball,  Featley,  and  Gataker,  England  for  half  a  cen- 
tury had  had  a  school  of  native  theologians  devel- 
oping an  Augustinian  or  moderately  Calvinistic 
type  of  doctrine,  without  slavish  dependence  on 
the  divines  of  any  Continental  school — a  system 
perhaps  quite  as  largely  drawn    from  Augustine 

380 


TJic  Westminster  Confessioii  of  Faith.  381 

and  other  early  western  doctors,  as  from  any  of 
the  Reformers.  Mr.  Marsden,  who  has  done  so 
much  by  his  writings  to  vindicate  the  character 
and  teaching  of  the  Puritans,  has  ventured  (p.  Z6) 
to  say  of  the  Confession  of  the  Assembly  that  "  it 
is  in  man}'  respects  an  admirable  summary  of 
Christian  faith  and  practice,"  "  pure  in  style,  the 
subjects  well  distributed  and  sufficiently  compre- 
hensive to  form  at  least  the  outline  of  a  perfect 
system  of  divinity."  But  he  has  failed  to  light 
on  its  sources,  and  expressed  regret  that  Ussher 
and  the  leaders  of  the  native  English  school  were 
not  present  in  greater  force  to  check  undue  defer- 
ence to  the  views  of  Calvin  and  Bullinger,  The 
younger  Dr.  M'Crie  again,  in  his  Annals  of  Pres- 
bytery in  England,  has  confidently  affirmed  that 
"  it  bears  unmistakably  the  stamp  of  the  Dutch 
theology  in  the  sharp  distinctions,  logical  forms, 
and  juridical  terms  into  which  the  Reformed  doc- 
trine had  gradually  moulded  itself  under  the  red 
heat  of  the  Arminian  and  Socinian  controversies."^ 
Others,  with  greater  want  of  caution  still,  have 
ventured  to  single  out  Cocceius^  or  Turretine  as 
the  true  and  immediate  prototype  of  the  teaching 

1  Annals  of  English  Presbytery,  p.  177. 

2  Hallam  says  somewhat  equivocally  of  him, — "  He  was  remark- 
able for  having  viewed,  more  than  any  preceding  writer,  all  the 
relations  between  God  and  man  under  the  form  of  covenants,  and 
introduced  the  technical  language  of  jurisprudence  into  theology. 
.  .  .  This  became  a  very  usual  mode  of  treating  the  subject  in 
Holland,  and  afterward  in  England." 


382    The  Westminster   Confession  of  Faith. 

of  the  Confession.  But  the  Westminster  divines 
had  done  their  work  before  either  of  these  men 
had  become  known  as  influential  factors  in  the 
development  of  the  Reformed  theology.  And 
there  is  abundant  evidence  that  in  its  general  plan, 
as  well  as  in  the  tenor  and  wording  of  its  more 
important  Articles,  the  Assembly's  Confession  is 
derived  immediately,  not  from  foreign,  but  from 
native  sources,  and  that  it  embodies,  not  conclu- 
sions adopted  slavishly  from  any  continental 
school,  but  the  results  of  the  matured  thought 
and  speculation  of  the  native  British  school,^ 
which  led  quite  as  much  as  it  followed  in  the 
wake  of  others,  both  in  reviving  the  life  of  the 
Churches  and  in  systematizing  their  doctrines. 
The  Confession  may  confidently,  and  I  may  now 
say  confessedly,^  be  traced   up  to  those  unques- 

1  Irish  Articles. — Of  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  the  three  Creeds, 
of  Faith  in  the  Holy  Trinity,  of  God's  Eternal  Decree  and  Predes- 
tination, of  the  Creation  and  Government  of  all  things,  of  the  Fall 
of  Man,  Original  Sin,  and  the  State  of  Man  before  Justification 
(including  article  on  Free  Will),  of  Christ  the  Mediator,  of  the 
Second  Covenant,  of  the  Communicating  of  the  Grace  of  Christ, 
of  Justification  and  Faith,  etc.  Westminster  Confession. — I.  Of  the 
Holy  Scripture.  H.  Of  God  and  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  HI.  Of  God's 
Eternal  Decree.  IV.  Of  Creation.  V.  Of  Providence.  VI.  Of 
the  Fall  of  Man,  of  Sin  and  of  the  Punishment  thereof.  IX.  Of 
Free  Will.  VII.  Of  God's  Covenant  with  Man.  VIII.  Of  Christ 
the  Mediator.  X.  Of  Effectual  Calling.  XI.  Of  Justification. 
XIV.  Of  Saving  Faiih,  etc.  For  fuller  statement  of  this  and 
other  correspondences,  see  the  works  referred  to  on  pp.  374,  376. 

2  Schaff's  Creeds  of  Ckristeniiom,\o\.  i.  p.  761 ;  Killen's  Eccle- 
siastical History  of  Ireland,  vol.  i.  pp.  494,  495 ;  ^^fi  ^^«^  '^^^"^^^ 
of  Archbishop  Ussher,  by  Carr,  pp.  107,  108. 


Its  sources  and  type  of  Doctrine.    38 


J 


tionably  Augustlnian  Articles'  of  the  Irish  Church, 
which  are  believed  to  have  been  prepared  by  Ussher 
when  Professor  of  Divinity  in  Trinity  College, 
Dublin,  and  which  in  161 5  were  adopted  by  the 
Irish  Convocation,  with  the  assent  of  the  Viceroy 
or  the  King,  as  "  Articles  to  be  subscribed  by  all 
ministers,"  and  at  least  not  to  be  contradicted  by 
them  in  their  public  teaching.  This,  I  hardly 
need  to   remind   you,  was   before  the   Synod   of 

^  These  Articles  were  held  in  high  repute  by  almost  all  the  sound 
Protestant  ministers  in  Britain  as  well  as  in  Ireland.  They 
embodied  the  mature  opinions  of  Ussher  and  of  several  other 
learned  and  othodox  divines,  who  scrupled  at  no  ceremony  re- 
quired in  the  Service  Book,  shrunk  from  no  submission  required 
to  the  absolute  will  of  the  King  in  things  indifferent,  and  were  in 
no  sense  liable  to  the  charge  of  following  Puritanism,  if  that  was 
anything  else  than  a  nickname  extended  to  the  opinions  of  all  who 
did  not  favor  the  views  of  Laud  and  his  school.  In  these  articles 
we  have  certainly  the  main  source  of  the  Westminster  Confession, 
and  almost  its  exact  prototype  in  the  enunciation  of  all  the  more 
important  doctrines  of  the  Christian  system.  In  the  order  and " 
titles  of  most  of  the  articles  or  chapters,  as  well  as  in  the  language 
of  many  sections  or  subdivisions  of  chapters,  and  in  a  large  number 
of  separate  phrases  or  voces  signahe,  occurring  throughout  their  Con- 
fession, the  Westminster  divines  appear  to  nie  to  have  followed 
very  closely  in  the  footsteps  of  Ussher  and  the  Irish  Convocation. 
There  are  not  wanting  indeed  proofs  that  other  Reformed  Con- 
fessions, particularly  those  of  the  French  and  Belgian  or  Dutch 
Churches  were  also  kept  in  view  by  them.  But  if  the  order  of  the 
chapters  in  these  other  confessions  be  compared  with  that  of  the 
Irish  and  Westminster  formularies,  it  will  at  once  be  perceived  that 
these  last  two  have  a  special  affinity  in  that  respect,  as  well  as  in 
regard  to  the  exact  titles  of  the  chapters  and  the  language  in 
which  many  of  the  sections  are  expressed.  For  particulars,  see 
Introduction  to  the  Minutes  of  Westminsier  Assembly,  pp.  xlvii. 
xlviii.,  and  my  lecture  on  The  Wesiniinster  Confession,  pp.  8-12, 
and  33-42. 


384   The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

Dort  had  met,  or  the  intense  heats,  which  the 
agitation  of  the  Arminian  and  Socinian  contro- 
versies occasioned  there,  had  extended  to  Britain ; 
while  the  more  important  of  the  juridical  terms 
were  already  in  use  both  on  the  Continent  and  in 
Britain,  and  several  of  them,  in  fact,  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  as  well  as  in  the  Protestant  Church.^ 

"  This  elaborate  formulary,"  Dr.  Killen  tells  us, 
"  when  adopted,  was  signed  by  Jones,  Archbishop 
of  Dublin,  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Bishops  in  Con- 
vocation, and  Lord  Chancellor  of  Ireland  ;  by  the 
Prolocutor  of  the  other  house  of  the  clergy,  in  their 
names ;  and  by  the  Lord  Deputy  Chichester,  in  the 
name  of  the  Sovereign.  It  has  indeed  been  ques- 
tioned whether  it  was  ever  submitted  to  the  Irish 
legislature ;  and  on  the  presumption  that  such  an 
oversight  occurred  its  authority  has  been  chal- 
lenged; but  as  Parliament  was  sitting  it  is  quite 
possible  that  even  this  form  was  not  neglected, 
though  we  have  no  positive  proof  of  its  observ- 
ance. It  is  certain  that  at  the  time  the  Articles 
were  understood  to  possess  the  highest  sanc- 
tion which  the  State  could  confer  on  them." 
Ussher  at  least  did  not  regard  them  as  super- 
seded by  the  adoption  of  the  English  Articles 
in  1634,  and  continued  to  require  subscription  to 
them  as  well  as  to  the  latter  while  he  remained  in 


in 


^  Paper  by  Prof.  A,  A.  Hodge,  p.  366  of  Report  of  the  Proceed- 
o-s  of  the  Second  General  Council  of  the  Presbyterian  Alliance. 


Its  soin^ccs  aiid  type  of  Doctrine.    385 

Ireland.  The  adoption  of  these  Articles  induced 
a  number  of  Puritan  ministers  from  England,  as 
well  as  from  Scotland/  to  settle  among  the  col- 
onists of  Ulster,  among  whom,  till  the  time  of 
Strafford,  they  enjoyed  a  generous  toleration,  and 
more  than  repaid  it  by  the  good  service  they  did 
to  these  motley  immigrants.  Perhaps  equally 
with  the  similar  efforts  in  Scotland  the  following 
year,  to  unite  both  parties  in  drawing  up  a  new 
Confession  and  formularies,  they  are  indications  of 
a  nobler  policy  on  the  part  of  Archbishop  Abbot 
than  that  of  his  successor,  viz.,  to  emphasize  the 
great  matters  on  which  moderate  Puritans  and 
Churchmen  of  his  own  school  agreed,  and  to  cast 
into  the  shade  or  allow  a  large  toleration  on  the 
minor  matters  on  which  they  differed, — a  policy 
for  which  the  times  were  not  ripe,  or  to  which  the 
King  himself  proved  fickle. 

In  a  lecture  on  the  Confession  of  Faith  pub- 
lished in  1866,^  I  exhibited  in  detail  the  corre- 
spondence between  these  Irish  Articles  and  the 
Westminster  Confession,  both  in  general  arrange- 
ments and  the  wording  of  many  sections.  The 
more   important  of  these  correspondencies   have 

^  "  All  of  them  enjoyed  the  churches  and  tithes  though  they 
remained  Presbyterian  and  used  not  the  liturgy." — Xeal.  "  Epis- 
copacy existed,  but  only  in  a  very  modified  form." — Perry. 

2  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith  :  A  Contribution  to  the  .Study 
of  its  History,  and  to  the  Defense  of  its  Teaching.  Edinburgh, 
1866. 

25 


386    Ths  Westminster   Confession  of  Faith. 

been  reprinted  in  that  great  work  of  Dr.  Schaff  on 
the  Creeds  of  Christendom,  for  which  we  owe  him 
such  a  debt  of  gratitude.  The  subject  has  been 
treated  more  succinctly  but  very  satisfactorily 
since  by  Dr.  Briggs  of  New  York,  in  his  paper  in 
the  Presbyterian  Review  for  January  1880.  I  do 
not  venture  to  assert  that  the  Assembly  have  in 
no  case  determined  questions  which  Ussher  and 
the  Irish  Convocation  had  left  undecided ;  but  I 
do  say  that  these  questions  are  neither  many  nor 
important,  and  are  rather  details  than  principles 
of  their  system,  which  they  did  not  mean  thereby 
to  elevate  to  a  factitious  importance.  Besides, 
when  occasion  called  they  took  the  greatest  pains 
to  express  their  sentiments  in  such  a  way  as  to 
obviate  or  minimize  objections  which  had  been 
taken  or  might  fairly  have  been  taken  to  the  words 
or  matter  of  the  English  and  the  Irish  Articles.' 
Dean  Stanley  has  on  various  occasions  admitted 
that  this,  in  several  important  instances,  has  been 
fully  made  out.^  The  volume  of  their  minutes 
which  has  been  published  clearly  shows  that  more 

1  While  the  terms  predesfinate  and  predestination  are  used  in  tlie 
same  sense  as  in  the  Enghsh  and  Irish  Articles,  the  term  repro- 
bated, which  had  been  admitted  into  the  Lambeth  and  Irish  Articles, 
is  exchanged  for  the  word  foreordained.  The  expression,  "  to  recon- 
cile His  Father  unto  us,"  retained  both  in  English  and  Irish 
Articles,  is  also  changed.     See  notes  in  Minutes,  pp.  xlviii.,  etc. 

2  In  his  paper  in  the  Contemporary  for  March  1866,  p.  547, 
also  in  the  paper  written  by  him  just  before  his  death,  and  inserted 
in  Macmillan' s  Magazine  for  August  188 1,  this  is  admitted  in 
regard  to  several  very  important  particulars. 


Its  sources  and  type  of  Doctrine.    387 

than  one  attempt  made  to  persuade  them  to  deter- 
mine questions  wisely  left  undecided  by  the  Irish 
Convocation  and  the  Synod  of  Dort,  was  strenu- 
ously resisted  ^  by  a  number  of  the  English  mem- 
bers, who  were  true  successors  of  the  great 
English  divines  who  had  attended  that  Synod,  and 
claimed  in  various  respects  to  have  moderated  its 
conclusions.  With  respect  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
Covenants,  which  some  assert  to  have  been  de- 
rived from  Holland,  I  think  myself  now,  after 
careful  investigation,  entitled  to  maintain  that  there 
is  nothing  taught  in  the  Confession  which  had  not 
been  long  before  in  substance  taught  by  Rollock 
and  Howie  in  Scotland,  and  by  Cartwright,  Pres- 
ton, Perkins,  Ames,  and  Ball  in  his  two  catechisms 
in  England,  while  there  is  a  perceptible  advance 
beyond  what  is  exhibited  as  the  general  teaching 
of  the  Dutch  divines  in  the  Synopsis  Purioris 
T/ieotogice  as  late  as  1642.  The  later  and  most 
remarkable  treatise  of  Ball,  on  the  **  Covenant  of 
Grace,"  was  published  with  recommendatory  no- 
tices by  Reynolds,  Cawdrey,  Calamy,  Hill,  Ashe, 
and  Burgess  at  the  very  time  the  Assembly  began 
to  frame  its  Confession,  and  it  contains  all  that  has 
been  admitted  into  the  Westminster  standards,  or 
generally  received  on  this  head  among  British 
Calvinists.^     The  work   of  Cocceius,   even   in   its 

1  Minutes  of  Westminslcr  Assembly,  pp.  150,  151,  152,  etc. 

2  See  the  account  given  of  it  in  my  paper  in  the  Report  of  the 


388    The  Westmmster  Confession  of  Faith. 

earliest  form,  was  not  given  to  the  world  till  after 
the  Confession  had  been  completed  and  published  ; 
nor  was  it  brought  substantially  into  the  shape  in 
which  we  now  have  it  till  1654,  by  which  date 
several  other  treatises  on  the  subject  of  the  Cov- 
enants had  issued  from  the  English  Press.  Some 
have  forgotten  these  patent  facts ;  many  more  have 
overlooked  the  less  patent  but  not  less  important 
ones  that  Cocceius  was  the  pupil  of  Ames  or 
Amesius/  the  well-known  English  Puritan  who 
was  called  to  teach  theology  in  Holland.  He,  as 
well  as  Cloppenburg  his  colleague,  taught  and 
published  views  as  to  the  Covenants,  similar  in 
character  to  those  of  Ball  already  referred  to. 
Cocceius,  it  is  true,  does  not  directly  acknowledge 
his  obligations  to  the  English  divines  as  he  does 
his  obligations  to  Olevianus.  Still,  there  are 
resemblances  in  his  work  to  theirs,  and  there  are 
more  marked  resemblances  to  Ball's,  especially  to 
its  historical  sections,  in  the  great  work  of  Witsius 
De  QLcoiwmia  Foedertun.  Had  the  Dutch  writers 
really  preceded  the  English  these  resemblances 
would  no  doubt  have  been  confidently  appealed  to 


Proceedings  of  the  Secottd  General  Council  of  the   Presbyterian 
Alliance,  pp.  478,  479  ;  also  Appendix,  Note  N. 

^  "  Amesiusthe  Puritan  insisted  upon  piety  of  heart  and  life,  and 
Amama  his  friend  specially  enforced  the  study  of  the  original  text 
of  Scripture.  The  two  latter  obtained  great  influence  over  the 
mind  of  the  piously  educated  young  student." — Dorner's  History 
of  Protestant  Theology,  vol.  ii.  p.  31. 


Its  sources  and  type  of  Doctrine.     389 

as  proof  that   the  Engh'sh  had  borrowed  from  or 
followed  in  the  wake  of  the  Dutch. 

In  regard  to  the  important  chapters  of  the 
Confession  on  the  Holy  Scriptures,  God  and  the 
Holy  Trinity,  God's  Eternal  Decree,  Christ  the 
Mediator,  the  Covenant  of  Grace,  and  the  Lord's 
Supper,  which  so  largely  determine  its  character  as 
a  whole,  the  resemblance  to  the  Irish  Articles  both 
in  expression  and  general  arrangement  is  so  close, 
that  not  the  slightest  doubt  can  be  entertained 
about  the  main  source  from  which  the  materials 
for  these  chapters  have  been  derived.^  As  little 
doubt  can  be  entertained  in  regard  to  the  design 
of  the  framers  in  following  so  closely  in  the  foot- 
steps of  Ussher  and  his  Irish  brethren.  They 
meant  to  show  him  and  others  like  him,  who  had 
not  had  the  courage  to  take  their  place  among 
them,  that  though  absent  they  were  not  forgotten 
nor  their  work  disregarded.  They  meant  their 
Confession  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  consensus  of 
the  Reformed  Churches,  and  especially  of  the 
British  Reformed  Churches,  as  that  had  been 
expressed  in  their  most  matured  symbol.  They 
desired  it  to  be  a  bond  of  union,  not  a  cause  of 
strife  and  division,  among  those  who  were  reso- 

^  See  my  paper  on  the  bibliology  of  the  Westminster  Confession 
in  the  Appendix  to  The  Proceedings  of  the  First  General  Presby- 
terian Council  (Edinburgh,  1877);  Introckiction  to  tlie  Minutes 
of  the  Westminster  Assembly,  pp.  xlix.  to  Ixix. ;  and  Lecture  on  the 
Westminster  Confession  of  Faith,  pp.  8-12. 


390   The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

lutely  determined  to  hold  fast  by  "  the  sum  and 
substance  of  the  doctrine "  of  the  Reformed 
Churches — the  Augustinianism  so  widely  accepted 
in  the  times  of  Elizabeth  and  James.  In  that 
logical  and  system-loving  age,  it  was  thought  that 
they  had  been  wonderfully  successful  in  their 
efforts  to  carry  out  their  desires  and  intentions,  so 
that  Baillie  could  boast  of  their  work  being"  "cried 
up  by  many  of  their  greatest  opposites  as  the  best 
Confession  yet  extant,"  and  Baxter  could  concede 
that  it  was  "  the  most  excellent  for  fulness  and  ex- 
actness he  had  ever  read  from  any  Church,"  and, 
with  all  his  individualism,  could  pitch  on  nothing 
in  it  as  contrary  to  his  judgment  save  a  few  minor 
matters  which  he  did  not  venture  to  deny  were 
capable  of  a  benign  interpretation.  The  Inde- 
pendents both  in  England  and  New  England,  and 
the  Baptists  in  England,  expressed  their  substan- 
tial approval  of  it,  so  far  as  it  had  been  accepted 
by  the  English  Parliament,  as  an  expression  of  the 
foith  they  also  held  and  taught.  In  our  own  day 
a  very  different  view  has  often  been  taken  of  the 
Confession,  and  many  hard  things  have  been  said 
of  it,  some  by  professed  friends,  more  by  avowed 
opponents  of  its  teaching.  I  have  endeavored,  in 
the  Introduction  to  the  published  volume  of  the 
Minutes  of  the  Assembly  already  referred  to,  to 
vindicate  it  from  the  m.ore  serious  charges  which 
have  been  brought  against  it,  and  to  claim  for  it 


Its  soin^ccs  and  type  of  Doctrine.     39 1 

and  its  authors  that  the  justice  be  done  them  to 
read  it  in  the  Hght  of  the  writings  and  the  known 
sentiments  of  the  men  who  drew  it  up,  and  less 
exclusively  than  has  long  been  done  in  the  light 
of  the  teaching  and  traditions  of  later  and  narrower 
times, — to  strip  it  as  far  as  possible  of  the  accre- 
tions which  in  the  lapse  of  time  have  gathered 
round  it,  and  marred  in  greater  or  lesser  measure 
its  goodly  form  and  true  proportions.'  I  must 
refer  any  of  you  who  wish  to  go  thoroughly  into 
this  matter  to  what  I  have  there  advanced  and 
still  abide  by,  as  to  the  inspiration  and  consequent 
canonicity  and  authority  of  Holy  Scripture,  the 
doctrines  of  the  Blessed  Trinity,  of  the  creation 
and  the  fl^ll  of  man,  of  Christ  the  Mediator,  of  re- 
demption and  justification  through  his  obedience 
unto  death,  of  the  Christian  Sabbath  and  the 
Lord's  Supper,  and  above  all,  of  the  mysterious 
doctrine  of  predestination,  in  the  exposition  of 
which  the  Irish  Articles  are  most  closely  adhered 
to.^     On  this  last  topic  it  has  been  again  griev- 

1  We  have  several  excellent  commentaries  on  it,  but  they  are 
mostly  expository  or  dogmatic,  and  have  made  comparatively  little 
use  of  the  vast  mass  of  materials  we  possess  in  the  writings  of 
those  who  framed  it,  to  illustrate  its  spirit  and  expound  the  more 
delicate  shades  of  its  teaching.  Quotations  from  Owen  and  later 
men  are  not  without  their  use,  nor  those  from  Hooker  and  Pearson  ; 
but  more  use  must  be  made  of  the  writings  of  the  members  of  the 
Assembly,  and  of  the  writings  of  that  great  divine  from  whose 
Articles  and  Catechisms  they  drew  so  largely. 

2  I  place  the  two  once  more  in  opposite  columns,  that  it  may  be 
seen  how  closely  the  later  has  followed  the  earlier,  and  how  faith- 


392    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 


ously   misrepresented  by  some,  of  whom  better 
things  might  have  been  expected,  and  the  fairness 

fully,  in  regard  to  this  important  head,  the  terms  of  pacification 
agreed  to  by  the  Irish  Convention  in   1615  were  adhered  to: 

WESTMINSTER    CONFESSION.  IRISH    ARTICLES. 


Chapter  III.— Of  God's 
Eternal  Decree. 

I.  God  from  all  eternity  did, 
by  the  most  wise  and  holy  coun- 
sel of  his  own  will,  freely  and 
unchangeably  ordain  whatsoever 
comes  to  pass  :  yet  so,  as  thereby 
neither  is  God  the  author  of  sin, 
nor  is  violence  offered  to  the 
will  of  the  creatures,  nor  is  the 
liberty  or  contingency  of  second 
causes  taken  away,  but  rather 
established. 

II.  Although  God  knows 
whatsoever  may  or  can  come  to 
pass  upon  all  supposed  condi- 
tions; yet  hath  he  not  decreed 
anything  because  he  foresaw  it 
as  future,  or  as  that  which  would 
come  to  pass  upon  such  condi- 
tions. 

III.  Ey  the  decree  of  God, 
for  the  manifestation  of  his  glory, 
some  men  and  angels  are  pre- 
destinated unto  everlasting  life, 
and  others  fore-ordained  to 
everlasting  death. 

IV.  These  angels  and  men, 
thus  predestinated  and  fore- 
ordained, are  particularly  and 
unchangeably  designed ;  and 
their  number  is  so  certain  and 
definite,  that  it  cannot  be  either 
increased  or  diminished. 


Article  III. — Of  God's 

Eternal  Decree  and 

Predestination. 

II.  God  from  all  eternity  did, 
by  his  unchangeable  counsel, 
ordain  whatsoever  in  time  should 
come  to  pass  :  yet  so  as  thereby 
no  violence  is  offered  to  the  wills 
of  the  reasonable  creatures,  and 
neither  the  liberty  nor  the  con- 
tingency of  the  second  causes 
is  taken  away,  but  established 
rather. 


12.  By  the  same  eternal  coun- 
sel, God  hath  predestinated  some 
unto  life,  and  reprobated  some 
unto  death :  of  both  which  there 
is  a  certain  number  known  only 
to  God,  which  can  neither  be  in- 
creased nor  diminished. 


Its  sources  and  type  of  Doctrine.     39^ 


at  least  have  been  shown 
on  this  mysterious  subje 

V,  Those  of  mankind  that  are 
predestinated  unto  life,  God, 
before  tlie  foundation  of  the 
world  was  laid,  according  to  his 
eternal  and  immutable  purpos<;, 
and  the  secret  counsel  and  good 
pleasure  of  his  will,  hath  chosen 
in  Christ  unto  everlasting  glory, 
out  of  his  mere  free  grace  and 
love,  without  any  foresight  of 
faith  or  good  works,  or  perse- 
verance in  either  of  them,  or  any 
other  thing  in  the  creature,  as 
conditions,  or  causes  moving 
him  thereunto ;  and  all  to  the 
praise  of  his  glorious  grace. 


VI.  As  God  hath  appointed 
the  elect  unto  glory,  so  hath  he, 
by  the  eternal  and  most  free 
purpose  of  his  will,  fore-ordained 
all  the  means  thereunto.  Where- 
fore they  who  are  elected  being 
fallen  in  Adam,  are  redeemed 
by  Christ;  are  effectually  called 
to  faith  in  Christ  by  his  Spirit 
working  in  due  season ;  are 
justified,  adopted,  sanctified,  and 
kept  by  his  power  through  faith 
unto  salvation.  Neither  are  any 
other  redeemed  by  Christ,  effec- 
tually called,  justified,  adopted, 
sanctified,  and  saved,  but  the 
elect  only. 


to  deal  with  its  teaching 
ct  as  it  was  explained  in 

13.  Predestination  to  life  is 
the  everlasting  purpose  of  God, 
whereby,  before  the  foundations 
of  the  world  were  laid,  he  hath 
constantly  decreed  in  his  secret 
counsel  to  deliver  from  curse  and 
damnation  those  whom  he  hath 
chosen  in  Christ  out  of  mankind, 
and  to  bring  them  by  Christ 
unto  everlasting  salvation,  as 
vessels  made  to  honor. 

14.  The  cause  moving  God  to 
predestinate  unto  life,  is  not  the 
foreseeing  of  faith,  or  persever- 
ance or  good  works,  or  of  any- 
thing which  is  in  the  person 
predestinated,  but  only  the  good 
pleasure  of  God  himself. 

15.  Such  as  are  predestinated 
unto  life,  be  called  according 
unto  God's  purpose  (his  Spirit 
working  in  due  season),  and 
through  grace  they  obey  the 
calling,  they  be  justified  freely, 
they  be  made  sons  of  God  by 
adoption,  they  be  made  like  the 
image  of  his  only  begotten  Son 
Jesus  Christ,  they  walk  religious- 
ly in  good  works,  and  at  length, 
by  God's  mercy,  they  attain  to 
everlasting  felicity. 

32.  None  can  come  unto 
Christ  unless  it  be  given  unto 
him,  and  unless  the  Father  draw 
him.  And  all  men  are  not  so 
drawn  by  the  Father  that  they 
may  come  unto  the  Son.  Neither 
is  there  such  a  suflicient  meas- 


394   ^/^^  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

the  writings   of   the   great  EngHsh  scholars  and 
divines  from  whom  mainly  it  came,  and  as  it  has 


VII.  The  rest  of  mankind, 
God  was  pleased,  according  to 
the  unsearchable  counsel  of  his 
own  will,  whereby  he  extendeth 
or  withholdeth  mercy  as  he 
pleaseth,  for  the  glory  of  his 
sovereign  power  over  his  crea- 
tures, to  pass  by,  and  to  ordain 
them  to  dishonor  and  wrath  for 
their  sin,  to  the  praise  of  his 
glorious  justice. 


ure  of  grace  vouchsafed  unto 
every  man  wherely  he  is  enabled 
to  come  unto  everlasting  life. 

But  such  as  are  not  predesti- 
nated to  salvation  shall  finally 
condemned  for  their  sins. 

14.  For  all  things  being  or- 
dained for  the  manifestation  of 
his  glory,  and  his  glory  being  to 
appear  both  in  the  works  of  his 
mercy  and  of  his  justice ;  it 
seemed  good  to  his  heavenly 
wisdom  to  choose  out  a  certain 
number  towards  whom  he  would 
extend  his  undeserved  mercy, 
leaving  the  rest  to  l)e  spectacles 
of  his  justice. 

17.  We  must  receive  God's 
promises  in  such  wise  as  they 
be  generally  set  forth  unto  us  in 
Holy  Scripture ;  and  in  our 
doings,  that  will  of  God  is  to  be 
followed,  which  we  have  ex- 
pressly declared  unto  us  in  the 
Word  of  God. 


VIII.  The  doctrine  of  this 
high  mystery  of  predestination 
is  to  be  handled  with  special 
prudence  and  care,  that  men 
attending  to  the  will  of  God 
revealed  in  his  Word,  and  yield- 
ing obedience  thereunto,  may, 
from  the  certainty  of  their  effec- 
tual vocation,  be  assured  of  their 
eternal  election.  So  shall  this 
doctrine  afford  matter  of  praise, 
reverence,  and  admiration  of 
God,  and  of  humility,  diligence, 
and  abundant  consolation  to  all 
that  sincerely  obey  the  gospel. 

The  only  section  of  this  chapter  of  the  Westminster  Confession 
which  has  not  a  correspondent  paragraph  in  the  Irish  Article  is 
the  second.  This  simply  negatives  the  Jesuit  theory  of  a  predesti- 
nation based  on  scieutia  media,  and  that  was  the  least  that  could 
be  expected  from  an  Assembly  over  which  Twisse  presided. 


Ans2uc7^s  to   Objections.  395 

been  guarded  by  the  authors  of  the  Confession 
themselves,  and  not  as  it  has  been  exaggerated 
by  the  representations  of  any  later  or  narrower 
school,  or  as  it  may  be  distorted  by  questionable 
inferences  of  their  own.  In  regard  to  the  doctrine 
actually  taught  in  the  Confession  I  cannot  com- 
press into  shorter  space  what  I  have  already  said, 
but  must  content  myself  with  referring  to  the 
pretty  full  statement  I  have  given  in  the  Introduc- 
tion to  the  Minutes  of  the  Westminster  Assembly, 
pp.  lii.  to  Ixiv.  I  subjoin,  however,  a  brief  reply 
to  some  of  the  objections  brought  against  it. 

In  reply  to  the  reckless  assertion,  that  those 
who  hold  this  doctrine  as  it  is  set  forth  in  the 
Westminster  Standards  cannot  preach  to  their 
perishing  fellow-sinners  the  love  of  God  and  the 
freeness  of  Christ's  salvation,  I  deem  it  sufficient 
to  point  to  the  fact  that  they  have  never  ceased 
to  preach  these  truths  fully  and  faithfully.  They 
believe  them  in  their  inmost  hearts,  and  allow  their 
belief  to  influence  their  conduct  and  mould  their 
teaching,  and  none  have  ever  set  forth  these 
precious  truths  with  more  winning  tenderness  or 
more  marked  success,  than  the  men  who  embraced 
their  system  of  doctrine,  and  had  a  firm  grasp  of 
their  principles,  as  Leighton,  Rutherfurd,  Sedge- 
wick,  Arrowsmith,  Tuckney,  Calamy,  and  Bunyan, 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  Willison,  Boston, 
Whitfield,  and  the  Erskines  in  the  eighteenth,  and 


396    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith, 

Chalmers,  M'Cheyne,  the  Bonars,  Nicholson,  and 
Crawford  in  the  nineteenth  century.  By  none  in 
recent  times  has  the  general  Fatherhood  of  God 
been  more  resolutely  defended  than  by  the  last- 
named  of  these  divines,  who  was  fully  persuaded 
that,  in  that  as  well  as  in  the  other  distinctive  ar- 
ticles of  his  creed,  he  was  following  faithfully^  in 
the  footsteps  of  the  Westminster  divines.  Even 
the  so-called  '*  grim  "  Synod  of  Dort  denounced  it 
as  a  calumny  against  the  Reformed  Churches  to 
assert  that  they  held  ''that  God  of  his  own  abso- 
lute or  arbitrary  will,  and  without  any  respect  of 
sin,  hath  foreordained  or  created  the  greater  part 
or  any  part  of  mankind  to  be  damned,  or  that  his 
decree  is  in  any  such  sense  the  cause  of  sin  or  of 
final  unbelief  as  it  is  the  cause  of  faith  and  good 
works."  And  as  to  the  atonement  of  Christ  they 
say,  "  This  death  of  the  Son  of  God  is  the  only 
and  most  perfect  sacrifice  and  satisfaction  for  sins, 
of  infinite  price  and  value,  abundantly  sufficient  to 
expiate  the  sins  of  the  whole  world."  "  Further- 
more, it  is  the  promise  of  the  gospel,  that  whosoever 
believes  in  Christ  crucified  should  not  perish  but 
have  everlasting  life  ;  which  promise,  together  with 
the  injunction  of  repentance  and  faith,  ought  pro- 
miscuously and  without  distinction  to  be  declared 
and  published  to  all  people  to  whom  God  in  his 
good  pleasure  sends  the  gospel.     But  forasmuch 

1  See  the  views  of  Harris  and  Ball  in  Mimttcs  pp.  Ix,,  Jxiii. 


Ans2ac7^s  to   Objections.  397 

as  many  being  called  by  the  gospel  do  not  repent 
nor  believe  in  Christ,  but  perish  in  their  infidelity, 
this  comes  not  to  pass  through  any  defect  or  in- 
sufficiency of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  offered  upon 
the  cross,  but  by  their  own  proper  fault."  And 
again  they  say,  "  This  default  is  not  in  the  gospel, 
nor  in  Christ  offered  by  the  gospel,  nor  in  God  who 
calleth  them  by  his  gospel,  and  moreover  bestoweth 
diverse  special  gifts  upon  them,  but  in  themselves 
who  are  called  ;  of  whom  some  are  so  careless  that 
they  give  no  entrance  at  all  to  the  word  of  life ; 
others  entertain  it,  but  suffer  it  not  to  sink  into  their 
hearts,  and  so  .  .  .  afterward  become  revolters." 

Even  this  much  misrepresented  Synod,  no  less 
than  many  Calvinists  in  our  own  day,  appears  to 
represent  God  our  Father  as  having  done  as  much 
for  all  to  whom  the  gospel  is  sent,  as  the  opposite 
system  represents  Him  as  having  done  for  any. 
As  Dr.  Crawford  has  so  well  put  it :  "  It  is  only 
with  reference  to  the  non-elect  that  the  Fatherly 
love  of  God  can  be  deemed  to  be  obscured  by 
Calvinists.  And  hence  the  question  comes  to  be, 
Wherein  does  the  atonement  present  a  less  gracious 
aspect  to  those  who  are  not  eventually  saved,  ac- 
cording to  our  view  of  its  special  destination,  than 
according  to  the  views  entertained  by  those  who 
differ  from  us  ?  The  atonement  per  Si\  according 
to  the  Arminian  view,  does  nothing  more  for  all 
men  than,  according  to  the  Calvinistic  view,  it  does 


39S    The  Westminster  Coiifession  of  Faith. 

even  for  the  non-elect.  It  does  not  per  se  secure 
their  actual  salvation,  but  merely  renders  salvation 
attainable  by  them  on  condition  of  their  repentin^^ 
and  believing  the  gospel.  Now  certainly  it  cannot 
be  said  to  do  less  than  this  according  to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  most  decided  Calvinists,  who  hold,  in 
the  words  of  Owen,  that  "  Christ's  oblation  of 
himself  was  every  way  sufficient  to  redeem  and 
save  all  the  sinners  in  the  world,  and  to  satisfy 
the  justice  of  God  for  all  the  sins  of  all  mankind," 
and  that  if  there  were  a  thousand  worlds  the  gospel 
of  Christ  might  on  this  ground  be  preached  to 
them  all — there  being  enough  in  Christ  for  the 
salvation  of  them  all,  if  so  be  they  will  derive 
virtue  from  him  by  faith." 

In  reply  to  the  not  less  reckless  charge  some 
have  preferred,  that  they  who  hold  this  doctrine 
teach  that  "  scarcely  anybody  can  be  saved,"  and 
so  drive  many  into  the  opposite  error  of  universal- 
ism,  I  say  that  Calvinists  have  good  cause  to  feel 
amazed  that  any  one  having  claims  to  scholarship 
and  candor  should  ever  have  preferred  it.  In  none 
of  the  authorized  formularies  of  the  Calvinistic 
Churches  with  which  I  am  acquainted  is  any  foun- 
dation given  for  such  a  caricature  of  the  system 
or  for  putting  a  narrower  meaning  on  the  "  some" 
who  are  to  be  saved  than  on  the  "  others  "  who 
are  not.  The  nearest  approach  to  it  I  remember 
occurs  in  the  Confession  of  Lord  Bacon,  who  was 


A?iswers  to   Objections.  399 

free  from  any  taint  of  Presbyterianism  or  Puritan- 
ism, and  he  merely  uses,  to  describe  the  elect, 
the  scriptural  epithet  "  little  flock."  It  is  not  from 
among  them  only  that  occasional  discourses  have 
come  on  the  fewness  of  the  saved.  They  are  quite 
as  much  entitled  as  the  representatives  of  any 
other  school  to  speak  of  those  who  shall  ultimately 
be  gathered  into  one,  under  Christ  their  head,  as 
a  great  multitude  which  no  man  can  number,  of 
all  nations  and  kindreds  and  people  and  tongues, 
and  to  hold,  as  some  of  the  most  pronounced  of 
them  in  our  own  day  have  avowed  they  do,  that 
the  number  of  the  saved  will  at  last  far  exceed 
that  of  the  lost.  With  respect  to  the  charge  that 
Calvinism  has  tended  greatly  to  foster  Rationalism 
and  Socinianism,  one  might  at  once  admit  that 
these  have  been  the  errors  to  which  Protestantism 
in  every  form  has  been  most  liable,  just  as  credulity 
and  superstition  have  been  the  besetting  sins  of 
the  Roman  and  Anglo-catholic  schools.  And  yet 
such  an  one  need  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  it  is 
not  the  case  that  Calvinism  has  been  in  any  special 
sense  chargeable  with  or  responsible  for  these 
erroneous  tendencies.  In  the  age  of  the  Reforma- 
tion their  chief  advocates  were  found  among  the 
Spaniards  and  Italians  who  had  joined  the  Re- 
formers, and  Spain  and  Italy  were  just  the  two 
countries  in  which  the  theology  of  Augustine  was 
least  in  repute  and  living  power.     In  the  following 


400    The  Westminster   Confession  of  Faith, 

century  it  was  not  among  the  Calvinists  of  France, 
Switzerland,  or  Britain,  but  among  the  Remon- 
strants of  Holland,  that  the  tendency  to  rational- 
izing and  Socinianizing  modes  of  thought  first 
markedly  showed  itself  It  spread  to  many  of  the 
Lutheran  Churches  of  Germany  before  it  seriously 
injured  the  Calvinistic  Churches.  It  affected  the 
Church  of  England  herself  before  it  touched  the 
Nonconformist  Churches.  In  our  own  day  no  one 
not  utterly  blinded  by  prejudice  will  venture  to 
deny  that  the  tendency  in  question  is  to  be  found 
in  Lutheran  and  Arminian  Churches  quite  as  much 
as  in  the  Calvinistic,  in  the  Church  of  England 
herself  quite  as  markedly  as  in  any  communion 
of  Scottish  or  American  Presbyterians. 

Further,  it  is  asserted  that  Calvinism  has  been 
unfavorable  to  literature.  It  may  be  admitted 
at  once  that  many  of  the  eminent  literary  men  of 
the  present  age  are  unfavorable  to  the  doctrinal 
system  of  Augustine  and  Calvin,  but  it  must  be 
admitted  also  that  the  greater  part  of  them  are 
not  more  friendly  to  many  of  the  doctrines  which 
used  to  be  held  firmly  by  Arminians,  and  in  par- 
ticular to  that  view  of  the  atonement  which  has 
been  current  among  Lutherans  and  Arminians  as 
well  as  Calvinists.  But  literature  did  not  take  its 
origin  in  the  nineteenth  century,  and  Calvinism  has 
contributed  its  fair  share  to  the  cultivation  of  it. 
It  is  admitted  that  it  has  had  quite  its  duepropor- 


Answei^s  to   Objections.  401 

tion,  and  even  more  than  its  due  proportion  of 
the  great  preachers  who  have  adorned  the  Chris- 
tian Church  from  the  age  of  Augustine  to  that  of 
Whitfield,  and  some  of  the  greatest  preachers  since 
Whitfield's  time  have  held  and  taught  its  principles. 
It  is  admitted  also  that  it  has  had  a  few  poets  and 
hymn-writers.  The  father  of  English  poetry  has 
at  least  spoken  of  it  more  respectfully  than  some 
modern  divines : — 

"  But  I  can  ne  bolt  it  to  the  bren, 
As  can  the  holy  doctor  St.  Austen, 
Or  Boece  or  the  bishop  Bradwardin." 

But  in  his  day  perhaps  it  was  still  a  half  truth, 
though  in  ours  it  is  said  to  have  become  wholly 
false.     Then,  should  he  be  left  out  who  wrote  : 

"  Some  I  have  chosen  of  peculiar  grace. 
Elect  above  the  rest ;  so  is  my  will :" 

and  should  not  the  names  of  Doddridge,  Newton, 
Cowper,  and  Bonar  be  added  to  those  of  Toplady 
and  Watts,  if  what  it  has  done  for  hymnology  is  to 
be  fairly  weighed  ?  It  is  admitted  it  has  given  us 
one  religious  allegory  ;  it  might  have  been  admitted 
that  it  had  given  us  two  at  least,  for  the  Holy 
War  of  Bunyan  is  only  inferior  in  pathos  and 
spiritual  power  to  his  Pilgrivis  Progress.  And 
before  it  is  urged  to  its  disparagement  that  it  has 
not  given  us  more  books  of  this  class,  let  any  other 
school  be  named  which  has  given  as  many  of  equal 
merit,  and  which  have  been  as  richly  blessed.     In 

26 


402    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

practical  divinity  and  treatises  which  appeal  to 
the  heart  and  conscience  as  well  as  to  the  intellect 
it  is  admitted  that  Calvinism  is  rich,  and  in  our 
own  language  there  are  no  treatises  can  be  named 
which,  in  their  power  of  rousing  the  careless, 
encouraging  the  doubting,  and  cheering  the  de- 
sponding, deserve  to  be  set  alongside  of  Baxter's 
Call  to  the  Unconverted,  and  his  Saints'  Everlasting 
Rest,  3.nd  Bunyans /ernsale7n  Sinner  Saved ;  and 
notwithstanding  all  his  individualism,  the  former 
as  well  as  the  latter  sides  with  Calvin  in  regard  to 
the  doctrine  of  predestination  and  many  of  the 
other  articles  of  his  creed.  Then,  as  has  been 
already  hinted,  Lord  Bacon,  Hooker,  Abbot,  Us- 
sher,  Hall,  Leighton,  and  Sibbes  were  Calvinists, 
and  it  is  so  far  from  being  true  that  Calvinism  has 
been  unfavorable  to  literature  in  Britain  that  on  the 
contrary  it  may  be  affirmed  that  if  the  names  of  all 
who  were  Calvinists  were  struck  out  of  the  list  of 
her  worthies,  the  Church  of  England  herself  would 
find  the  number  of  the  great  names  which  adorn 
her  annals  seriously  curtailed. 

What  has  been  asserted  by  some  of  Calvinism 
in  general  has  been  affirmed  by  others  of  Scottish 
Calvinism  in  particular.  The  account  I  have 
already  given  of  the  works  of  its  theologians  in 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  will  I  hope 
suffice  to  show  that  during  these  ages  it  held  its 
own  among  the  Reformed  Churches,  and  in  pro- 


A^iswers  to   Objections.  403 

portion  to  its  size  contributed  its  fair  share,  and 
somewhat  more,  to  the  elucidation  and  defense  of 
a  moderate  Calvinism,  and  bore  the  heavaest  share 
of  the  contest  for  the  autonomy  of  the  Church,  the 
Presbyterian  constitution  of  its  governing  coun- 
cils, and  the  rights  of  its  ordinary  members  in  the 
choice  of  their  pastors.  Leighton,  the  only  one  of 
its  prelates  in  the  seventeenth  century  who  gained 
a  name  and  fame  for  himself  as  a  theologian, 
passed  his  happiest  days  as  a  minister  of  its  Pres- 
byterian Church  ;  and  most  of  those  discourses 
which  charm  us  still,  and  which  were  treasured  in 
many  a  humble  Presbyterian  household  ere  yet 
they  had  come  to  be  so  generally  valued  else- 
where, were  preached  from  the  pulpits  or  deliv- 
ered from  the  chair  of  Divinity  in  our  Covenanting 
Church.  In  the  eighteenth  century  the  literary 
fame  of  the  leaders,  lay  as  well  as  clerical,  of  the 
national  Church  of  Scotland  is  universally  ac- 
knowledged, and  the  contributions  made  to  theo- 
logical literature  in  an  untheological  age  by  a 
single  Scottish  divine — Dr.  Campbell  of  Aberdeen 
— by  his  Dissertation  on  Miracles,  his  Lectures  on 
Ecclesiastical  History,  and  his  opus  iiiagiuun  on 
the  Gospels,  were  such  as  many  larger  Churches 
in  that  century  might  have  been  proud  of.  Then 
in  the  same  century  there  arose  or  came  to  ma- 
turity a  school  of  history  and  philosophy  which 
added   greatly  to   our  country's  fame.     Its   chief 


404   The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

ornaments  were  ministers,  preachers  or  elders  of 
the  national  Church,  and  Sir  William  Hamilton, 
the  greatest  ornament  of  that  school  in  our  own 
times,  expressed  himself  far  more  respectfully 
regarding  its  Calvinistic  theology  than  many  have 
the  assurance  to  do  who  have  not  a  tithe  of  his 
learning,  insight,  and  speculative  power.  He  had 
been  alienated  not  from  Calvinism  but  from  what 
he  held  was  a  misrepresentation  of  it.  "  He  re- 
garded Calvinism,"  his  biographer  tells  us,  **  as 
the  more  philosophical  system,"  and  spoke  "  with 
the  highest  respect  of  its  author,"  but  "  he  pro- 
tested against  its  alliance  with  [Edwards's  system 
of]  philosophical  necessity — a  protest  in  some 
measure  shared  by  his  strenuous  antagonist  Prin- 
cipal Cunningham."  At  present  Biblical  and  his- 
torical studies  show  quite  as  decided  a  tendency 
to  revive  in  Scotland  as  in  England.  A  Scottish 
publisher,  by  naturalizing  among  us  the  best  prod- 
ucts of  German  thought,  has  done  more  to  pro- 
mote such  studies  than  any  of  his  brethren  in 
Britain.  Scottish  scholars  have  held  their  own  in 
the  Jerusalem  Chamber  in  the  revision  of  our  ven- 
erable translation  of  the  Scriptures,  and  especially 
of  the  Old  Testament.  Dr.  Pusey  himself  did  not 
disdain,  for  the  elucidation  of  the  Chaldee  of 
Daniel,  to  call  in  the  aid  of  a  Scottish  scholar, 
whose  untimely  removal  from  the  chair  he  was  so 
peculiarly  fitted  to  adorn  we  all  deeply  regret. 


Ajisu'crs  to   Objections.  405 

The  charges  I  have  still  to  mention  are  of  minor 
importance/  The  first  of  them  is  the  assertion,  so 
often  and  confidently  propounded  of  late,  that  the 
Confession  represents  the  creation  of  the  world  as 
having  taken  place  in  six  "  natural  or  literal  days," 
which  almost  all  orthodox  divines  now  grant  that 
it  did  not.  But  the  whole  ground  for  the  asser- 
tion is  furnished  by  the  words  "  natural  or  literal  " 
which  the  objectors  themselves  insert  or  assume. 
The  authors  of  the  Confession,  as  Dr.  A.  A. 
Hodge  has  well  observed,^  simply  repeat  the  state- 
ments of  Scripture  in  almost  identical  terms,  and 
any  interpretation  that  is  fairly  applicable  to  such 
passages  of  Scripture  as  Gen.  ii.  3  and  Exodus 
XX.  II,  is  equally  applicable  to  the  words  of  the 
Confession.  It  is  quite  true,  as  he  has  shown, 
that  since  the  Confession  was  composed,  many 
facts  of  science  previously  unknown  have  been 
brought  to  light  respecting  the  changes  through 
which  our  globe  and  probably  the  stellar  universe 
had  passed  before  the  establishment  of  the  present 
order  of  things,  and  that  new  arguments  have 
thus  been  furnished  against  interpreting  the  days 
mentioned  in  the  above  passages  of  Scripture  as 
literal  days.  But  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that 
this  method  of  interpreting  the  days  in  these  pas- 
sages originated   in  modern  times,  and  was  alto- 

1  This,  somewhat  abridged,  appears  in  paper  named  p.  387. 
'^  Covinientary  on  the  Confession  of  Faith,  p.  82. 


4o6    TJie  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

gether  unknown  to  the  men  who  framed  our  Con- 
fession. To  prove  it  a  mistake  it  is  not  necessary 
to  have  recourse  to  the  ingenious  conjecture,  that 
some  of  the  Cambridge  men  in  the  Assembly  may 
have  been  acquainted  with  the  manuscript  work 
of  Dean  Colet,  preserved  in  their  archives,  but  only 
given  to  the  public  in  our  own  time,  in  which 
the  figurative  interpretation  of  the  days  of  crea- 
tion is  maintained.^  There  is  no  lack  of  evidence, 
in  works  published  before  the  meeting  of  the  As- 
sembly, and  familiar  to  several  of  its  members,  to 
show  that  the  figurative  interpretation  had  long 
before  Dean  Colet's  time  commended  itself  to  sev- 
eral eminent  scholars  and  divines  with  whose  works 
members  of  the  Assembly  were  acquainted.  If 
there  was  one  Jewish  scholar  with  whose  writings 
such  men  as  Lightfoot,  Selden,  Gataker,  Seaman, 
and  Coleman  were  more  familiar  than  another,  it 
was  Philo  of  Alexandria ;  and  Philo  has  not 
hesitated  to  characterize  it  as  "  rustic  simplicity,  to 
imagine  that  the  world  was  created  in  six  days, 
or,  indeed,  in  any  clearly  defined  space  of  time." 
Augustine,^  the  great  Latin  doctor,  with  whose 
works  several  of  the  Westminster  divines  were  far 
better  acquainted  than  most  of  their  successors,  in 
his  literal  Commentary  on  Genesis,  maintains  that 

^  Colet's   Letters  to  Radulphiis  on  the  Mosaic  Account  of  the 
Creation,  with  translation  and  notes  by  J.  H.  Lupton.     1876. 
2  Migne's  edition  of  Augustine,  De  Genesi  ad  literam,  iv.  27. 


Anszucrs  to   Objections,  407 

the  clays  of  the  creation-week  were  far  different 
from  {loiige  disparcs),  and  again,  very  unlike  to 
(imdtiim  inipares)  those  that  are  now  in  the  earth. 
Procopius,  a  Greek  writer  not  unknown  to  some 
of  the  Westminster  divines,  teaches  that  the 
number  of  six  days  was  assumed  not  as  a  mark  of 
actual  time,  but  as  a  manner  of  teaching  the  order 
of  creation;  while  in  certain  commentaries  in  that 
age,  attributed  to  the  Venerable  Bede,  and  largely 
read  in  England,  though  now  deemed  spurious,  a 
similar  opinion  is  said  to  be  found.'  The  figura- 
tive interpretation  therefore  of  the  six  days  of 
creation  is  no  make-shift  of  hard-pressed  theolo- 
gians of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was  held  by 
respectable  scholars  and  divines,  from  early  times, 
and  was  known  to  the  framers  of  our  Confession ; 
and  had  they  meant  deliberately  to  exclude  it 
they  would  have  written  not  six  days,  but  six 
natural  or  six  literal  days. 

The  next  topic  to  which  1  advert  is  the  charge 
made  against  the  Confession  of  teaching  that  not 
all  infants  dying  in  infancy,  but  only  an  elect 
portion  of  them,  are  saved.  Here  again  scrimp 
justice  has  been  dealt  out  to  it.  Its  exact  words 
are,  "  Elect  infants,  dying  in  infancy,  are  regene- 
rated and  saved  by  Christ  through  the  Spirit." 

^  Most  of  these  testimonies  are  referred  to,  and  the  opinion  they 
express  is  admitted  to  be  probabilis,  in  the  sense  his  sect  used  that 
term,  by  Sixtus  Senensis  in  his  Bibliotheca  Sanda,  p.  422. 


4o8    TJie  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

This  statement,  it  has  been  averred,  necessarily 
impHes  that  there  are  non-elect  infants  dying  in 
infancy,  who  are  not  "  regenerated  and  saved." 
It  does  not  seem  to  me,  when  fairly  interpreted, 
to  imply  any  such  thing.  It  might  have  been 
susceptible  of  such  an  interpretation  had  it  been 
allowed  to  stand  in  the  form  which  it  appears  to 
have  borne  in  the  draft  first  brought  in  to  the 
Assembly — "  elect  of  infants," '  not  elect  infants. 
But  the  very  fact  that  the  form  of  expression  was 
changed  shows  how  anxious  the  divines  intrusted 
with  the  methodizing  of  the  Confession  were  to 
guard  against  pronouncing  dogmatically  on  ques- 
tions on  which  neither  Scripture  nor  the  Reformed 
Churches  had  definitely  pronounced.  The  state- 
ment occurs,  it  is  important  to  notice,  not  in  the 
chapter  treating  of  predestination,  but  in  the  chap- 
ter treating  of  effectual  calling ;  and  is  meant,  not 
to  define  the  proportion  of  infants  dying  in  infancy 
who  shall  be  saved,  but  to  assert  the  great  truths, 
that  even  they  are  not  exempt  from  the  conse- 
quences of  the  fall,  but  are  by  nature  every  one 
of  them  in  the  niassa  pei'ditionis ;  that  they  can 
only  be  separated  from  it,  and  saved,  by  the  elect- 
ing love  of  the  Father,  the  atoning  work  of  the 
Son,  and  the  renewing  of  the  Holy  Ghost;  and 
that  they,  however  as  yet  incapable  of  the  exercise 
of  reason  and  faith,  may  by  the   Holy  Spirit  be 

1  Minutes  of  Westminster  Assembly,  p.  162,  Sess.  534. 


Anszvers  to   Objections.  409 

regenerated  and  made  meet  for  the  inheritance  of 
the  saints  in  hght  As  Dr.  Hodge  has  briefly  and 
clearly  expressed  it :  ^  "  The  phrase  *  elect  infants  ' 
is  precise  and  fit  for  its  purpose.  It  is  certainly 
revealed  that  none  either  adult  or  infant  is  saved 
except  on  the  ground  of  sovereign  election — that 
is,  all  salvation  for  the  human  race  is  pure  grace. 
It  is  not  positively  revealed  that  all  infants  are 
elect,  but  we  are  left  for  many  reasons  to  indulge 
a  highly  probable  hope  that  such  is  the  fact.  The 
Confession  affirms  what  is  certainly  revealed,  and 
leaves  that  which  revelation  has  not  decided  to 
remain  without  the  suggestion  of  a  positive  opin- 
ion upon  one  side  or  the  other."  In  historical 
vindication  of  this  interpretation  of  their  meaning, 
I  deem  it  only  necessary  to  refer  to  the  judgment 
of  Davenant  and  the  other  English  divines  at  the 
Synod  of  Dort,  who  were  the  precursors  and 
teachers  of  the  leading  English  divines  of  the 
Assembly.  The  Arminians  had  maintained  that, 
as  all  infants  dying  in  infancy  were  undoubtedly 
saved,  there  could  not  be  said  to  be  any  election, 
so  far  as  they  were  concerned.  The  English, 
though  personally  not  much  in  advance  of  their 
brethren  on  the  Continent,  gave  special  promi- 
nence in  their  reply  to  the  statement  that,  even 
granting  the  premises  of  the  Arminians,  the  con- 
clusions  drawn    from    them   were   by  no    means 

1  Hodge  on  the  Confession  of  Faith,  pp.  174,  175. 


4IO    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith, 

legitimate  or  necessary.  Election  and  pretention, 
they  said,  had  respect  to  the  whole  mass  of  fallen 
humanity,  not  to  certain  separate  divisions  of  it 
according  to  age  or  circumstances,  and  that  though 
a  certain  number  of  infants  dying  in  infancy  might 
not  be  separated  from  or  elected  out  of  a  certain 
number  also  dying  in  infancy  and  not  elected,  yet 
if  all  were  separated  from  the  common  mass  of 
mankind  sinners,  and  bound  up  in  the  bundle  of 
life  with  Christ,  that  was  quite  sufficient  to  consti- 
tute an  election  of  them,  and  to  warrant  such  an 
expression  as  elect  infants  dying  in  infancy.  Ad 
rationem  eleciionis  divines  sive  ponendavi  sivc  to/ ten- 
dam  circnnistantia  cEtatis  est  qidddam  impertinens. 
.  .  .  Fae,  igitnr,  onines  infantes  servari  ne  uno 
qindeni  prceteiito^  tamen  quia  eteetio  et  preteriiio 
respicit  inassani  non  eetatem,  tieet  non  e  nuniero 
infantiuni,  tamen  e  communi  massa  Jiondmim  pec- 
catorum  segregati  sunt  quod  ad  electionis  rationem 
constituendam  suffieit}  Few  of  these  divines,  or 
of  their  successors  at  Westminster,  had  probably, 
in  personal  opinion,  advanced  as  far  as  good 
Bishop  Hooper,  who,  as  I  told  you  in  a  previous 
Lecture,  said,  "  It  is  ill-done  to  condemn  the  infants 
of  Christians  that  die  without  baptism,  of  whose 
salvation  by  the  Scriptures  we  be  assured.  ...  I 
would  likewise  judge  well  of  the  infants  of  the 
infidels   who   have   none   other   sin    in   them   but 

1  Acta  Synodi  Dordrechtance,  p.  499,  4to  editio. 


Auszuers  to   Objections.  4 1 1 

original.  ...  It  is  not  against  the  faith  of  a  Chris- 
tian man  to  say  that  Christ's  death  and  passion 
cxtendeth  as  far  for  the  salvation  of  innocents,  as 
Adam's  sin  made  all  his  posterity  liable  to  con- 
demnation." But  the  best  of  them  had  come  to  adopt 
the  first  part  of  his  opinion  (which  was  more  than 
many  high  churchmen  had  then  done),  and  from 
reverence  for  him  and  others  whom  they  loved,  to 
refrain  from  pronouncing  positively  against  the 
second. 

The  last  topic  to  which  I  shall  advert  as  having 
been  quite  as  much  misunderstood  as  either  of  the 
preceding,  is  the  concluding  statement  in  the  same 
chapter:  "  Much  less  can  men,  not  professing  the 
Christian  religion,  be  saved  in  any  other  way,  be 
they  ever  so  diligent  to  frame  their  lives  according 
to  the  light  of  nature  and  the  law  of  the  religion 
they  do  profess ;  and  to  assert  and  maintain  that 
they  may,  is  very  pernicious  and  to  be  detested." 
This  is  a  slight  softening  down  of  a  statement 
made  in  more  extreme  form  in  the  English 
Articles,^  and  in  some  of  the  other  Reformed 
Confessions,  and  perhaps  the  Baptists  somewhat 
improved  it  in  1677  when,  under  the  guidance  of 
Bunyan,  they  changed  the  words  "  not  professing 
the   Christian  religion "   into   "  not   receiving  the 

^  "  They  also  are  to  be  had  accursed  that  presume  to  say," 
etc. — Article  XVIII.  "  We  utterly  abhor  the  blasphemy  of  them 
that  affirm,"  ^Kc— Scottish  Confession  of  1560.  "  Abominamur 
impiissiman  vesaniam." — Conf.  Hclv.  Post. 


4 1  2    The  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

Christian  religion,"  to  make  it  more  clear  that  they 
meant  the  statement  to  be  limited  to  those  who 
had  had  the  Christian  religion  tendered  to  them, 
but  had  refused  to  receive  it,  and  continued  ob- 
stinately to  live  by  the  light  of  nature  and  the  law 
of  the  religion  they  professed.  That,  I  think,  was 
what  the  Westminster  divines  also  had  chiefly  in 
view  (I  will  not,  in  remembrance  of  certain  ques- 
tions in  the  larger  Catechism,  say  exclusively  in 
view),  to  bear  their  testimony,  in  common  with 
other  Reformed  Churches,  against  the  Spiritualists 
or  Pantheists  of  the  school  of  Servetus,  as  well  as 
against  the  Deists  and  Free-thinkers  among  them- 
selves, who,  living  in  the  full  blaze  of  the  light  of 
revelation,  preferred  nature's  twilight,  and  despised 
the  riches  of  God's  goodness  and  forbearance  and 
long-suffering.  They  who  hold  that  the  words 
of  the  Confession  were  meant  to  have  a  wider 
application  should  at  least  do  its  framers  the 
justice  to  remember  that  all  they  do  absolutely 
define  is,  that  the  persons  spoken  of  cannot  be 
saved  by  the  light  of  nature,  or  the  law  of  the 
religion  they  profess ;  and  that  when  they  go  on 
in  a  subsequent  chapter  to  define  the  Church  of 
visible  professors  and  outward  ordinances,  all  that 
they  venture  to  affirm  is,  that  out  of  it  there  is  no 
**  ordinary  possibility  of  salvation,"  not  that  the 
salvation-bringing  grace  of  God  is  never  mani- 
fested  outside  the  portals  of  **  the  house  of  his 


Aitswers  to   Objectiojis.  413 

continual  residence,"  or  otherwise  than  through 
its  ordinances.  Even  a  Scottish  divine,  more  than 
half  a  century  before,  in  a  catechism  which  circu- 
lated in  England  as  well  as  in  Scothlihd,  had  in 
answer  to  the  question.  How  is  a  vian  framed  and 
made  able  to  serve  God?  inserted  the  following 
statement :  "  By  the  effectual  working  of  God's 
Spirit  in  him,  extraordinarily  and  zvithoiit  ordinary 
means,  howbeit  but  seldom  in  a  Reformed  Church, 
and  ordinarily  by  ordinary  means  at  all  times 
in  a  Reformed  Church."^  That  is,  I  suppose, 
where  a  church  had  been  planted,  and  brought 
into  harmony  with  the  requirements  of  the  word 
of  God,  the  influences  of  the  Spirit  were  ordinarily 
(though  not  even  then  exclusively)  communicated 
through  the  channel  of  its  ordinances ;  but  where 
a  church  had  not  been  set  up  or  had  fallen  from 
pristine  purity,  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  was  not  re- 
strained from  working  extraordinarily  and  with- 
out ordinary  means.  Ball,  whose  treatise  on  the 
Covenant  of  Grace  was  published  in  1645,  and 
recommended  by  several  members  of  the  Assem- 
bly, affirms  (p.  47) :  "  We  know  God  is  not  tied  to 
the  means,  nor  do  we  absolutely  exclude  every 
particular  man  from  the  grace  of  the  covenant 
who  is  excluded  from  the  covenant  outwardly  ad- 
ministered, but  we  cannot  think  they  shall  univer- 
sally be  partakers  of  the  grace  of  the  covenant." 

^  Galloway's  Catechism. 


414    T^f^^  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith, 

Yet  once  more,  let  me  repeat,  that  all  I  contend 
for  is  that  the  Westminster  divines  have  not  pro- 
nounced against  the  more  liberal  views  on  such 
subjects  which  modern  Calvinists  have  commonly 
adopted ;  not  that  they  themselves  generally  held 
them,  but  that  they  knew  of  them,  and  knew  them 
to  be  tolerated  or  favored  by  several  whom  they 
loved  and  honored  for  the  good  service  they  had 
done  in  their  day  and  generation,  and  that  they 
were  content  to  give  forth  no  binding  determina- 
tion in  regard  to  them.  Their  main  object,  as  I 
said  in  the  outset,  was  to  set  forth  in  their  Con- 
fession the  great  principles  of  the  faith  common  to 
the  Reformed  or  Calvinistic  Churches,  without 
exalting  into  principles  points  on  w^hich  these 
Churches  had  not  thought  fit  to  decide.  And  I 
believe  that  in  adherence  to  their  creed  and 
method  lies  our  only  hope  of  a  United  Anglo- 
Saxon  Presbyterianism — Augustinian  or  Calvin- 
istic yet  comprehensive,  strong  yet  forbearing  in 
the  use  of  its  strength,  earnest  and  untiring  in 
self-sacrificing  Christian  work,  orderly  yet  free  in 
its  worship. 

It  is  hardly  possible  for  a  minister  of  the 
national  Church  to  conclude  a  lecture  on  this 
subject  without  referring  to  the  very  remarkable 
paper  on  it  which  appeared  in  Macmillans  Maga- 
zi?ie  for  August  1881.  and  was  the  last  literary 
labor  of  one  whom  even  those  who  most  differed 


Answers  to   Objections.  415 

from  him  had  learned  to  love  and  esteem.  Dean 
Stanley,  more  than  any  Englishman  of  our  day, 
had  striven  to  understand  our  ways  and  to  recip- 
rocate the  warm  regard  in  which  we  held  him,  and 
in  this  the  last  paper  which  proceeded  from  his 
pen  we  have,  with  all  its  defects,  a  generous  and 
valuable  testimony  to  the  merits  of  that  Confes- 
sion to  which  the  Presbyterian  Churches,  under 
scorn  and  obliquy  and  misrepresentation,  have  so 
resolutely  clung.  While  others  who  have  never 
managed  to  rid  themselves  of  early  idola  spccus 
about  it,  can  hardly  speak  with  patience  of  the  re- 
presentation it  gives  of  the  character  and  purposes 
of  God,  this  "  eirenic  "  divine  does  not  hesitate  to 
vindicate  its  teaching  on  the  latter  as  in  substantial 
accord  with  that  of  his  own  (and  he  might  have 
added  still  more  of  the  Irish)  Church,  and  not 
unreasonable  in  itself;  while  of  its  teaching  on  the 
former  subject  he  affirms  that  the  glowing  words 
it  adds  to  the  definition  of  God  ^  in  the  English 
(he  might  have  said  too  in  the  Irish)  Article  "have 
no  parallel"  in  those  or  "any  of  the  earlier  creeds." 
He  speaks  in  terms  of  like  admiration  of  the 
chapter  relating  to  Christ  the  Mediator  and  his 
mediatorial  w^ork,  and  of  "the  much  larger  and  no- 

^  "  Most  loving,  gracious,  merciful,  long-suffering,  abundant  in 
goodness  and  truth,  forgiving  iniquity,  transgression,  and  sin ;  the 
rewarder  of  them  that  diligently  seek  Him,  and  withal  most  just 
antl  terrible  in  His  judgments,  hating  all  sin,  and  who  will  by  no 
means  clear  the  guilty." 


41 6    The  Westmirtster  Confession  of  Faith. 

bier  description  of  the  sacred  volume"  in  Chapter 
I.  "  than  is  to  be  found  in  the  Tridentine  or  the 
Anglican  Confession."  And  from  a  different  point 
of  view  from  that  I  have  thought  fit  to  take,  he 
finds  something  to  say  for  the  language  it  uses 
in  speaking  of  elect  infants  and  of  those  who  do 
not  profess  the  Christian  religion.  The  three  ques- 
tionable statements  to  which  he  is  disposed  to 
take  objection  are,  as  himself  admits,  of  inferior 
moment,  and  will  not  generally  in  Scotland  be 
regarded  as  very  questionable  by  those  who  are 
not  inclined  to  question  much  more.  The  first 
refers  to  the  assertion  of  the  autonomy  of  the 
Church,  which  he  admits  is  made  in  moderate 
terms,  and  in  regard  to  which  Scotchmen  generally 
still  think  that  England  has  more  to  learn  than 
they  have.  The  second  relates  to  the  passage 
which  by  implication  condemns  marriage  with  a 
deceased  wife's  sister.  And  if  there  is  nothing  in 
the  English  Articles  on  that  subject,  the  principle 
on  which  the  condemnation  is  based  is  as  firmly 
rooted  in  English  as  in  Scottish  law,  and  far  more 
closely  bound  up  with  certain  prominent  events  in 
the  history  of  its  Reformation.  The  third  state- 
ment to  which  he  takes  objection  is  that  which 
affirms  the  Pope  to  be  the  "  man  of  sin."  This, 
however,  is  taken  from  the  Irish  Articles  of  1615, 
and  if  it  is  not  in  the  English  Articles  there  is  no 


A7iswe7^s  to   Objections.  4 1 7 

doubt  it  is  in  the  Homilies  '  to  which  the  Articles 
refer,  so  that  not  even  in  regard  to  these  is  there 
material  difference  between  the  position  of  the 
clergy  in  the  two  Churches  save  in  the  matter  of 
the  autonomy  of  the  Church,  and  in  regard  to  that 
many  of  the  clergy  of  the  Church  he  adorned,  as 
they  think  of  the  freedom  we  enjoy  in  the  meeting 
of  our  courts  and  the  exercise  of  our  discipline, 
would  be  much  more  ready  to  say,  "  Happy  is  the 
people  that  is  in  such  a  case  "  than  "  God,  I  thank 
thee  that  I  am  not  as  this  Presbyterian." 

^  On  Peril  of  Idolatry,  pt.  3;  against  Wilful  Rebellion,  \>i.  6. 
27 


LECTURE    XII. 

THE    assembly's    CATECHISMS,    LARGER    AND    SHORTER. 

My  last  Lecture  was  devoted  to  an  account  of 
the  Confession  of  Faith  which  was  prepared  by  the 
Assembly  of  Divines  at  Westminster,  and  is  still 
accepted  by  almost  all  orthodox  Presbyterians  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race  as  their  confession  or  chief 
doctrinal  symbol.  I  showed  you  how  carefully  it 
was  framed  on  the  lines  already  laid  down  by  the 
best  British  divines,  and  especially  by  that  prince 
of  theologians,  Ussher  of  Armagh, — to  whom  his 
fellow-churchmen  of  subsequent  times  have  failed 
to  render  the  homage  he  deserves  for  his  great 
learning  and  his  firm  attachment  to  Augustinian- 
ism  and  our  common  Protestantism.  It  now  only 
remains  that  before  concluding  these  historical 
sketches  I  should  give  you  some  account  of  the 
Catechisms  of  the  Assembly,  and  especially  of  the 
Shorter  Catechism,  which,  with  Baxter,  I  regard 
as,  in  several  respects,  the  most  remarkable  of 
their  symbolical  books,  the  matured  fruit  of  all 
their  consultations  and  debates,  the  quintessence 
of  that  system  of  truth  in  which  they  desired  to 
train  English-speaking  youth,  and  faithful  training 

418 


The  Assembly  s   Catechisms.  419 

in  which,  I  behevc,  has  done  more  to  keep  aHve  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  reverence  for  the  old 
theology  than  all  other  human  instrumentalities 
whatever. 

Attention  is  only  now  beginning  to  be  given  in 
somewhat  like  adequate  measure  to  the  structure 
and  composition  of  these  catechisms.  The  com- 
position of  the  Confession  of  Faith  has  been 
minutely  examined,  and  something  like  general 
agreement  as  to  the  sources  from  which  it  has 
been  taken  has  been  arrived  at.  But  no  similar 
service  has  yet  been  rendered  in  regard  to  the 
catechisms,  and  I  do  not  see  how  I  can  more 
appropriately  bring  these  Lectures  to  a  close  than 
by  bringing  a  humble  contribution  to  suppl)'  this 
desideratum. 

It  may  fairly  be  said  of  the  catechisms  framed 
on  the  system  of  the  doctrinal  Puritans,  and  pub- 
lished in  England  between  the  years  1600  and 
1645,  that  their  name  is  legion.  Perhaps  no  more 
convincing  proof  could  be  cited  of  the  great  in- 
fluence the  men  were  exercising  throughout  these 
years  of  trial  and  oppression,  and  also  of  the 
manner  in  which  they  came  to  acquire,  retain,  and 
increase  it,  as  that  which  is  furnished  by  the  floods 
of  different  catechisms  and  different  editions  of 
the  same  catechism, — often  five  or  six,  in  several 
cases  ten  or  twelve,  and  in  some  cases  from  twenty 
to  thirty  editions    being    poured    forth    from   the 


420  The  Assembly  s  Catechisms, 

London  press  in  rapid  succession.  Among  the 
members  of  the  Assembly  there  were  at  least 
twelve  or  fourteen  who  had  prepared  and  pub- 
lished catechisms  of  their  own  years  before  the 
Assembly  met,  as  Twisse,  White,  Gataker,  Gouge, 
Wilkinson,  Wilson,  Walker,  Palmer,  Cawdrey, 
Sedgewick,  Byfield,  and  possibly  Newcomen,  Ly- 
ford,  Hodges,  and  Foxcroft,  to  say  nothing  of 
Cartwright,  Perkins,  Ussher,  Rogers,  and  Ball,  who 
at  a  somewhat  earlier  time  had  prepared  the  way 
for  them,  and  whom  several  of  them  can  be  shown 
to  have  more  or  less  followed  in  their  plan,  or  in 
details. 

The  first  step  toward  the  preparation  of  a  cate- 
chism may  be  said  to  have  been  taken  in  December 
1643,^  when  Messrs.  Marshall,  Palmer,  Goodwin, 
Young,  and  Herle,  with  the  Scottish  Commis- 
sioners, were  appointed  a  committee  to  draw  up  a 
directory  for  public  worship.  That  was  intended 
to  include  a  directory  for  catechising,  if  not  a  cate- 
chism, and  the  preparation  of  that  paper  was  in- 
trusted to  Mr.  Herbert  Palmer.^  Notwithstanding 
his  great  reputation  as  a  catechist,  his  paper,  as 
first  presented,  does  not  appear  to  have  come  up 
to  the  expectation  of  the  Scottish  Commissioners. 
Their  chronicler  tells  us,  "Mr.  Marshall's  part 
anent  preaching,  and  Mr.  Palmer's  about  catechis- 

^  Baillie's  Letters,  vol.  ii.  p.  1 18. 
2  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.  p.  140. 


Larger  aiid  SJiorter.  421 

ing,  though  the  one  be  the  best  preacher,  and  the 
other  the  best  catechist  in  England,  yet  we  no 
ways  Hke  it ;  so  their  papers  are  passed  in  (/'.  c. 
into)  our  hands  to  frame  them  according  to  our 
mind."  ^  This  was  written  on  2d  April  1644,  and 
on  2 1st  November  of  the  same  year  it  is  briefly  re- 
corded that  "  the  catechise  is  drawn  up,  and  I  think 
shall  not  take  up  much  time,"  and  again,  on  26th 
December,  that  **  we  have  near[ly]  also  agreed  in 
private  on  a  draught  of  catechism,  whereupon, 
when  it  comes  into  public,  we  expect  little  debate." 
The  natural  inference  from  these  notices  seems  to 
be  that  this  catechism  was  either  some  one  which 
had  been  drafted  by  themselves  in  terms  of  the 
remit  made  to  them — the  catechism  published  in 
1644  for  the  benefit  of  both  kingdoms,  or  that 
of  Rutherfurd,  still  extant  in  MS.  in  the  Library 
of  the  University  of  Edinburgh^ — and  which  they 
were  prematurely  counting  on  getting  the  com- 
mittee and  the  Assembly  to  accept  without  much 
discussion,  or  else  some  modification  of  Mr.  Pal- 
mer's directory  or  catechism,  such  as  we  shall  find 
reason  to  believe  they  were  willing,  after  consulta- 
tion with  their  friends  in  the  north,  to  accept,  at 
least  in  its  method  and  principles.  Before  this 
date  the  printed  Minutes^  of  the  Assembly  show 

^  Baillie's  Letters,  vol.  ii.  p.  148. 

''■  "  Ane  Soume  of  the  Christian  Religion,"  since  presented  in 
my  CatechisDis  of  the  Second  Reformation. 
^  Page  12,  2d  December  1644. 


42  2  The  Assembly  s  Catechisms ^ 

that  Messrs.  Marshall,  Tuckney,  Newcomen,  and 
Hill  had  been  added  to  Mr.  Palmer  "  for  hastening 
the  catechism,"  and  that  on  7th  February  1644-5 
Messrs.  Reynolds  and  Delme  were  added, — of 
course  in  conjunction  with  the  Scotch  Commis- 
sioners, who  claimed  the  right  to  be  on  all  com- 
mittees appointed  to  carry  out  any  part  of  the 
uniformity  covenanted  for  between  the  Churches. 
Among  the  catechisms  which  I  examined  cur- 
sorily in  1866  in  the  British  Museum  and  in  Sion 
College  Library  was  one  bearing  the  title.  An 
Endeavour  of  Making  CJiristian  Religion  easie,  and 
published  at  Cambridge  in  1640  without  the 
author's  name,  but  which,  from  Dr.  Wallis'  preface 
to  his  Explanation  of  the  Shorter  Catechism,  I  con- 
cluded was  probably  Palmer's.  In  it  each  of  the 
principal  answers  is,  by  repetition  of  part  of  the 
question,  made  a  complete  and  independent  propo- 
sition, and  these  principal  answers  are  broken  down 
in  a  peculiar  way  in  a  series  of  subordinate  ques- 
tions, all  capable  of  being  answered  by  the  mono- 
syllables Aye  or  No.  It  did  not  then  strike  me 
as  so  similar  to  the  Westminster  Catechisms  in 
their  ultimate  form  as  it  does  now,  and  not  know- 
ing then  what  we  know  (now  that  the  Minutes 
have  been  transcribed  from  the  almost  illegible 
original)  of  the  successive  stages  by  which  this 
ultimate  form  was  reached,  I  had  almost  forgotten 
all  about  it,  till    1876-7,  when,  as  I  ruminated 


Lai^gcr  a7id  Shorter.  423 

over  the  notes  of  a  very  unintelligible  debate  in 
the  Minutes,  this  fact  came  back  to  my  remem- 
brance as  one  which  might  enable  me  to  cast  light 
on  it.  It  was  not  my  good  fortune,  however,  to 
get  back  to  the  British  Museum  till  November 
1879,  and  before  that  time  my  attention,  as  well  as 
that  of  others,  had  been  called  by  an  Edinburgh 
bookseller  to  what  is  said  by  Dr.  Belfrage  in  the 
history  of  the  Shorter  Catechism  prefixed  to  the 
Second  edition  of  his  Practical  Exposition  of  the 
Assembly s  Shorter  Catechism.  This  history  was 
not  contained  in  the  earlier  edition  of  the  book. 
Dr.  Belfrage  appears  to  have  seen  Palmer's  Cate- 
chism, and  to  have  compared  it  with  the  Assem- 
bly's, but  his  conclusion  regarding  it  coincided 
rather  with  my  first  impressions.  He  states,  how- 
ever, that  M'Crie,  on  the  ground  of  the  passage 
quoted  above  from  Baillie,  was  disposed  to  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  **  Mr.  Palmer  was  concerned 
in  the  first  draft  of  the  Catechism."  My  friend 
Dr.  Briggs,  who  also  saw  Palmer's  treatise  when 
in  London  in  1879,  early  in  the  following  year 
gave  an  interesting  account  of  its  relations  to  the 
Shorter  Catechism  in  the  paper  to  which  I  re- 
ferred in  a  former  lecture.^  I  have  preferred  to 
wait  till  I  had  leisure  to  make  a  further  study  of  all 
the  contemporary  Puritan  catechisms,  and  might 
venture  to  speak  of  them  with  fuller  knowledge. 

^  In  Presbyterian  Review,  for  January  l88o. 


424  The  Assembly  s   Catechisms, 

I  have  now  little  doubt  that  the  paper  which 
Palmer  gave  in  to  the  Committee  and  to  the 
Assembly  in  1645,  and  which  occasioned  the  de- 
bate to  which  I  have  referred,  was  substantially  the 
same  with  the  preface  to  his  catechism.  It  details 
the  method  which  he  had  himself  made  use  of  in 
his  catechizings,  and  which  many  modern  keys 
(as  they  are  called)  to  the  Shorter  Catechism  have 
borrowed  from  him  or  from  Dr.  John  Wallis,  who, 
without  loss  of  time,  applied  the  system  of  his 
revered  master  to  the  new  catechism  which  the 
Assembly  ultimately  agreed  on.  The  Scotch 
Commissioners,  when  they  first  heard  this  paper, 
were  not  satisfied  with  it;  and  their  impartiality 
therefore  is  the  more  highly  to  be  commended  in 
regard  to  it.  They  had  themselves  in  the  mean- 
time brought  out  "  the  New  Catechism  according 
to  the  form  of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland,  published  for 
the  benefit  of  both  Kingdoms,"  ^  and  perhaps  in 
the  hope  that  it  might  be  adopted  as  the  common 
catechism.  Yet  when  they  had  had  time  to  con- 
sider the  subject  more  deliberately,  and  advise 
with  their  friends  in  Scotland  regarding  it,  they 
proved  in  the  debate  to  which  I  have  referred,  if 
not  the  only,  certainly  the  most  prominent  advo- 
cates of  Palmer's  method  and  peculiar  form  of 
catechism.     This  debate  occurred  on  the   13th  of 

^  Printed  in  the  Old  Bailly  1644,  and  reprinted  in  Catechisms 
of  the  Second  Reformation. 


Larger  and  Shorter.  425 

May  1645,  probably  just  after  the  fifth  edition 
of  Pahiicr's  Httle  treatise  had  appeared.^  His 
efforts  on  that  occasion  were  directed  mainly  to 
securing  the  Assembly's  approval  of  his  mctJiod 
of  catechising  rather  than  of  the  detailed  coiitcnts 
of  his  catechism.  Yet,  as  I  read  the  brief  minutes 
of  the  debate,  his  efforts  were  not  crowned  with 
success.  The  Scotch  Commissioners  Rutherfurd 
and  Gillespie  spoke  warmly  in  favor  of  his  method 
of  catechising,  and  of  the  practice  he  adopted 
of  making  each  principal  answer  a  distinct  and 
complete  proposition,  and  breaking  down  the 
principal  answers  by  subordinate  questions  which 
could  all  be  answered  by  Aye  or  No.  His  per- 
sonal friend  Delme  gave  the  plan  a  sort  of  general 
support,  but  all  the  other  speakers,  and  among 
them  Messrs.  Marshall  and  Reynolds,  two  of  the 
most  prominent  members  of  his  committee,  while 
frankly  acknowledging  his  great  skill  and  success 
as  a  catechist  and  the  good  that  might  come  from 
ministers  in  their  catechisings  availing  themselves 
of  his  method,  resolutely  objected  to  have  these 
subordinate  questions  and  answers  reduced  to 
rigid  form  and  inserted  in  the  public  catechism.^ 

1  Published  in  London  1645. 

2  Minutes  of  l'Vt'sti?iiiisft'r  Assembly,  \>Tp.  91-94 — Mr.  Marshall . ■ 
"  I  confess  that  the  pains  which  that  brother  that  brought  in  tlie 
Report  [hath  taken]  is  both  accepted  with  God  and  hatli  been 
blessed  by  him.  .  .  .  But  I  crave  leave  to  give  a  few  dissenting 
thoughts  to  the  method  propounded,"     These  were  in  substance 


426  The  Assembly  s  CatccJiisms, 

One  can  hardly  contemplate  without  a  shudder 
how  near  we  were  to  missing  the  most  concise, 
nervous,  and  severely  logical  catechism  in  our 
language  had  Mr.  Palmer  and  the  Scotch  Com- 
missioners at  that  time  carried  their  point  and  got 
these  subordinate  questions  and  answers  inserted 
in  the  catechism.  I  do  not  think  that  was  further 
pressed  on  the  Assembly  after  this  date,^  but  Mr. 
Palmer  continued  to  be  so  persuaded  of  its  excel- 
lence and  importance  that  he  determined  with 
himself  that  he  would  print  upon  his  own  method 
the  catechism  which  the  Assembly  should  ulti- 
mately adopt,  and,  departing  to  his  rest  ere  that  had 

that  people  would  come  to  get  up  the  subordinate  answers  by 
rote  as  well  as  the  principal  ones,  that  good  might  come  of  the 
catechiser  himself  breaking  up  the  principal  answers  in  the  method 
proposed,  but  not  from  their  being  inserted  into  the  catechism 
and  learned  by  rote.  He  approved,  however,  of  commending  all 
this  in  the  preface  to  the  catechism.  Mr.  Reynolds  :  "  We  all 
agree  that  way  which  is  most  for  ingenerating  knowledge  is  most 
to  be  used.  But  that  this  way  before  you  is  the  best  way  I  cannot 
discern.  [If]  you  resolve  it  shall  be  but  a  directory,  then  how  shall 
those  Ayes  or  Noes  be  of  use  ?  .  .  .  You  will  obtain  your  end  as  well 
by  setting  it  down  in  the  preface  to  the  catechism."  Seaman  says 
there  were  two  questions  before  them,  the  one  relating  to  a 
catechism,  the  other  to  the  method  of  catechising,  and  that  the 
two  should  be  kept  distinct,  and  the  minister  not  too  strictly  tied 
up  as  to  the  latter.  Palmer  was  somewhat  dissatisfied  with  the 
result  of  the  debate,  and  said  that  if  he  had  not  a  peculiar  interest 
in  the  matter  he  would  have  spoken  more  upon  it. 

^  Baillie,  however,  says  at  a  later  date  :  "  We  had  passed  a 
quarter  of  the  catechise  and  thought  to  have  made  short  work  with 
the  rest;  but  they  are  fallen  into  such  mistakes  and  endless  jang- 
lings  about  both  the  method  and  the  matter  that  all  think  it  will 
be  longsome  work." — Letters,  vol.  ii.  p.  416. 


Lm^gcr  and  SJiorte7\  427 

been  completed,  he  left  his  purpose,  as  a  sacred 
legacy,  to  be  executed  by  his  young  friend  Wallis. 
He  accordingly  in  1648  published  that  explanation 
of  the  Shorter  Catechism  on  the  model  of  Palmer's 
treatise,  on  which  several  so-called  keys  to  it  have 
in  our  own  day  been  based. 

On  1st  August,  1645,  a  further  report  was  pre- 
sented by  the  committee  to  the  Assembly.  The 
interval  may  possibly  have  been  employed  in  try- 
ing to  put  the  materials  of  Palmer's  Catechism 
into  more  acceptable  shape,  or  to  bring  it  nearer 
to  the  Scotch  one  (which,  though  more  brief,  is 
framed  on  the  same  plan),  and  to  disencumber 
it  of  all  the  subordinate  questions  to  the  formal 
insertion  of  which  objection  had  been  taken.  The 
only  hints  which  the  Minutes  supply  are  that 
there  was  a  debate  as  to  whether  the  Creed 
should  be  expressed  and  probably  made,  as  it  was 
both  in  the  Scotch  and  in  Palmer's,  and  several 
contemporary  catechisms,  the  basis  of  the  exposi- 
tion of  the  Articles  of  Faith,  or  whether  these 
articles  should  be  taken  up  in  the  systematic 
order  more  usually  adopted  in  strictly  Puritan 
catechisms.  There  was  also  a  debate  concerning 
God,  which  was  one  of  the  first  articles  in  all  the 
catechisms  of  the  period,  whether  they  were 
framed  on  the  basis  of  the  Apostles'  Creed  or  of 
the  commonly  received  system  of  theology.  But 
I  conclude  that  even  yet  the  committee  was  not 


428  The  Assembly  s   CatecJiisms, 

altogether  of  one  mind/  and  that  it  was  on  this 
account  that,  after  debate  on  20th  August,  it  was 
reconstituted,  and  Mr.  Palmer,  Dr.  Stanton,  and 
Mr.  Young  were  appointed  to  draw  up  the  whole 
draft  of  the  catechism  with  all  convenient  speed. 
Either,  however,  they  did  not  proceed  very 
speedily  or  they  met  with  unexpected  difficulties 
in  their  undertaking,  and,  on  22d  July  1646  Mr. 
Ward  was  adjoined  to  them.  It  was  not  till  i  ith 
September  1646  that  their  report  was  called  for, 
nor  till  the  afternoon  of  Monday  14th  September 
that  it  was  actually  presented ;  and  from  that  date 
on  to  the  4th  January  1646-7  it  was  from  time  to 
time  taken  up,  and  passed  as  far  as  the  fourth 
commandment.^  On  1st  December,  however, 
before  much  of  it  had  passed,  a  large  addition 
was  again  made  to  the  committee,  viz.,  Messrs. 
Whitaker,  Nye,  and  Byfield,  and  "  the  brethren  who 
had  been  intrusted  with  the  methodizing  of  the 
Confession  of  Faith,"  viz.,  Messrs.  Reynolds,  Herle, 
Newcomen,  Arrowsmith,  and  Tuckney  ;  and  pro- 
bably it  was  in  consequence  of  these  changes  on 
the  committee  that  on  the  14th  of  January,  on  a 
motion  by  Mr.  Vines,  it  was  ordered  "  that  the 
committee  for  the  catechism  do  prepare  a  draught 
of  two  catechisms,  one  more  large  and  another 
more  brief,  in  the  preparation  of  which  they  are 
to  have  an  eye  to  the  Confession  of  Faith  and  the 

^  Minutes,  pp.  124,  125.  '  Minutes,  pp.  281-318. 


Larger  and  SJiorter.  429 

matter  of  the  catechism  already  begun,"  '  or,  as  the 
Scotch  Commissioners  report  it  in  a  letter  to  the 
Commission  of  their  own  Assembly,  which  bears 
unmistakable  evidence  of  being  from  the  hand  of 
Rutherfurd  :  "  The  Assembly  of  Divines,  after  they 
had  made  some  progress  in  the  catechism  which 
was  brought  in  to  them  from  their  committee,  and 
having  found  it  very  difficult  to  satisfy  themselves 
or  the  world  with  one  form  of  catechism  or  to 
dress  up  milk  and  meat  both  in  one  dish,  have, 
after  second  thoughts,  recommitted  the  work  that 
two  forms  of  catechism  may  be  prepared,  one 
more  exact  and  comprehensive ;  another  more 
easie  and  short  for  new  beginners."^  The  cate- 
chism which  had  already  been  so  far  passed  was 
unquestionably  still  on  the  basis  of  Palmer's,  but 
a  large  portion  of  the  detailed  historical  explana- 
tions of  the  second  part  of  the  creed,  relating  to 
the  birth,  life,  death,  and  resurrection  of  our  Lord, 
was  omitted,  and  in  the  exposition  of  the  com- 
mandments another  basis  is  already  plainly 
discernible,  while  a  more  pronounced  Calvinistic 

^  Minutes,  p.  321 ;  also  Baillie's  Letters,  vol.  ii.  p.  379. 

2  MS.  Minutes  of  Commission.  To  the  same  effect,  Gillespie 
says  to  the  Assembly  in  Edinburgh  in  August  1647,  that  the 
divines  have  found  great  difficulty  "how  to  make  it  full,  such  as 
might  be  expected  from  an  Assembly,  and,  upon  the  other  part, 
how  to  condescend  to  the  capacity  of  the  common  and  unlearned. 
Therefore  they  are  a-making  two  distinct  catechisms — a  short  and 
plain  one  for  these,  and  a  larger  one  for  those  of  understanding." 
Appendix  to  Baillie's  Letters,  vol.  iii.  p.  452. 


430  The  Assembly  s  Catechisms, 

character  is  given  to  the  doctrinal  teaching.  The 
variations  from  and  additions  to  individual  answers 
can  in  general  be  still  traced  to  other  contempo- 
rary catechisms,  and  the  more  important  of  them 
to  those  of  Ussher,  on  whose  catechetical  manuals, 
as  previously  on  his  Articles  of  Religi6n,  they 
seem  to  me  to  take  pleasure  in  falling  back, 
especially  on  all  cardinal  questions.  Even  this 
partially  passed  recension  of  a  catechism  follows 
his  and  more  strictly  Puritan  treatises  rather  than 
Palmer's  in  placing  in  the  forefront  the  question 
and  answer  as  to  the  rule  of  faith,  and  in  inserting 
another  as  to  the  decrees  of  God ;  and  it  is  to  the 
same  source  we  have  to  trace  the  questions  and 
answers  as  to  the  covenants  of  works  and  of  grace, 
the  prophetical,  priestly,  and  kingly  offices  of  the 
Redeemer,  and  the  effectual  calling,  justification, 
adoption,  and  sanctification  and  perseverance  of 
those  who  have  been  made  partakers  of  redemp- 
tion, and  even  the  detailed  and  specific  statements 
as  to  the  sinfulness  of  the  estate  into  which  man 
fell.  All  these,  which  make  the  Westminster  Cate- 
chisms what  they  ultimately  became,  are  to  be 
sought  outside  of  Palmer's  Endeaiwr  of  making 
Christiaji  Religion  casie,  which  the  more  they  tried 
to  adapt  it  to  their  purpose,  the  more  they  had  to 
alter  or  supplement  it ;  and  all  these  are  to  be 
found  in  the  distinctively  Calvinistic  catechisms 
of  Ezekiel  Rogers,  John  Ball,  William  Gouge,  M. 


Larger  and  Shorter.  431 

N[ewcomen  or  Nicholl],  and,  to  a  considerable 
extent,  in  those  of  Henry  Wilkinson  and  Adoni- 
ram  Byfield,  as  well  as  of  Archbishop  Ussher. 
Of  this  I  deem  myself  entitled  to  speak  with  some 
confidence,  having  had  the  opportunity  of  carefully 
comparing  the  answers  in  their  manuals  as  well 
as  in  Palmer's  with  the  definitions  ultimately 
inserted  by  the  Assembly  in  one  or  other  of  its 
catechisms. 

It  was  not  until  after  the  Scripture  proofs  for 
the  Confession  of  Faith  were  completed  that  the 
result  of  the  labors  of  the  reconstituted  com- 
mittee in  preparing  a  Larger  Catechism  were 
called  for.  But,  on  15th  April  1647,  ^^e  first 
portion  of  them  was  presented  to  the  Assembly 
and  further  portions  were  from  time  to  time 
presented  and  discussed  till,  on  15th  October  of 
the  same  year,  the  Larger  Catechism  was  finished, 
substantially  in  the  shape  in  which  we  still  have 
it.  The  doctrinal  part  of  this  manual,  as  every  one 
who  has  carefully  studied  it  knows,  and  as  the 
resolution  reconstituting  the  committee  prepares 
us  to  expect,  is  taken  to  a  large  extent  from  the 
Confession  of  Faith.  The  explanation  of  the  ten 
commandments,  and  of  the  duties  required  and 
the  sins  forbidden  under  each,  is  largely  derived 
from  Ussher's  Body  of  Divinity,  NichoU's  and 
Ball's  catechisms,  and  perhaps  also  from  Cart- 
wright's  Body  of  Divinity  and  some  of  the  larger 


432  The  Assembly  s  Catechisms^ 

practical  treatises  of  Perkins.  The  exposition 
of  the  Lord's  Prayer  has  been  got  in  part  from 
the  same  sources,  in  part  also  from  Attersoll's,  or 
some  other  catechism  based  on  Perkins'  treatise 
on  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  like  it,  supplying  matter 
for  confession  of  sin,  as  well  as  for  prayer  more 
strictly  so  called,  under  each  of  the  petitions  of  the 
Lord's  Prayer.  I  can  enter  into  particulars  as  to 
this  derivation  or  correspondence  only  in  the  most 
cursory  way,  but  in  the  collection  of  catechisms 
published  by  me  in  1886,  I  have  endeavored  to 
provide  materials  for  tracing  it  out  more  fully. 

The  first  question  or  interrogation,  which  does 
not  seem  to  have  appeared  in  the  former  draft  of 
the  committee,  is  taken  from  the  old  English 
translation  of  Calvin's  Catechism,  What  is  the 
principal  and  chief  end  of  man's  life?  The  answer 
to  this  question  may  be  said  to  combine  the  an- 
swers to  Question  3rd  in  the  Catechisms  of  Calvin 
and  Ames,  "  To  have  his  glory  showed  forth  in  us," 
and  "  in  the  enjoying  of  God,"  and  it  may  have 
been  taken  from  them  ;  or  the  first  part  may  have 
been  taken  from  Rogers,  Ball,  or  Palmer,  and  the 
second  from  one  of  the  earliest  catechisms  of  the 
Swiss  Reformation,  viz.,  that  of  Leo  Judae,  pub- 
lished at  Zurich  before  1530.^     The  second  ques- 

1  From  its  importance  I  insert  in  full  the  question  and  answer. 
Q.  Die,  sodes,  ad  quern  finem  homo  creatus  est  ?  R.  Ut  optimi 
maximi  ac  sapientissimi  Dei  Creatoris  mnjestatem  ac  bonitatem 
agnoscamus,  tandemque  illo  a-ternuni  fruamiir. 


Larger  and  SJiortcr.  433 

tion  is  one  found  in  several  contemporary  cate- 
chisms, and  the  answer  to  it  is  substantially  taken 
from  the  Confession  of  Faith.  The  third  question, 
which  in  the  former  draft  had  stood  apparently  at 
the  head/  is  put  here  in  a  somewhat  altered  shape, 
and  the  clause  which  had  there  been  principal,  and 
again  becomes  so  in  the  Shorter  Catechism,  is 
brought  in  as  subsidiary  and  thrown  to  the  end 
of  the  answer.  The  next  question,  relating  to  the 
proofs  showing  that  the  Scriptures  are  the  word 
of  God,  is  found  in  many  Puritan  catechisms,  and 
the  answer  is  abridged  from  the  Confession  of 
Faith.  The  question  as  to  what  the  Scriptures 
principally  or  especially  teach  is  found  both  in 
Paget's  and  in  Ball's  Catechism,  and  the  answer  in 
Ussher's  Principles  of  Christian  Religion.  The 
next  question,  What  do  the  Scriptures  make  known 
of  God  ?  and  the  answer,  are  found  in  analogous 
forms  in  Rutherfurd's  and  some  other  contempo- 
rary manuals.  The  answer  to  the  question,  What 
is  God?^  had  in  the  former  draft  been  taken  from 
Palmer's  work,  with  the  exception  that  **  perfec- 
tion," in  the  singular,  had  been  changed  into  "  per- 
fections," in  the  plural,  as  it  had  been  in  another 
catechism  published  anonymously  in  the  previous 
year.  Here  the  former  description  is  exchanged 
for  one  abridged  apparently  from  Ussher's  Body 

^  Miinites,  p.  281. 

2  "  God  is  a  most  glorious  being,  infinite  in  all  perfections." 

28 


434  ^/^^  Assembly's  Catechisms, 

of  Divinity}  The  next  answer,  respecting  the 
properties  or  attributes  of  God,  was  at  first  dis- 
tinct from  the  previous  one.  Dr.  Briggs  supposes 
it  may  have  been  got  by  crushing  into  one  the 
answers  to  more  than  a  score  of  questions  in 
Pahiier's  treatise  and  Dr.  Matthews  deduces  it 
by  a  somewhat  similar  condensation  of  various 
answers  in  Ball's  larger  catechism.  But  it  is  simply 
an  abridgment  of  a  paragraph  in  Chapter  II.  of  the 
Confession  of  Faith  ;  and  the  ultimate  answer  of 
the  Larger  Catechism  to  the  question.  What  is 
God  ?  was  got  by  joining  these  two  answers  into 
one.  The  answer  to  the  same  question  in  the 
Shorter  Catechism  is  from  a  different  source,  and 
is  composed  of  the  Scriptural  definition  "  God  is 
a  Spirit,"  with  the  incommunicable  attributes 
arranged  in  the  same  order  as  they  were  by 
Rogers,  but  in  adjectival  form,  and  the  communi- 
cable in  substantive  form  almost  exactly  as  they 
had  been  given  by  Egerton. 

But  time  will  not  admit  of  my  prosecuting  this 
minute  comparison  further.  The  doctrinal  defini- 
tions in  the  Larger  Catechism  are,  as  I  have  said, 
in  a  great  measure  abridged  from  the  Confession 
of  Faith,  and  so  far  as  they  are  not  so  they  may 
generally  be  found  in  a  shorter  form  in  Ball's  and 
Nicholl's  catechisms,  or  in  a  more  diffuse  form  in 
Ussher's  Body  of  Divinity.    The  same  may  be  said, 

^  "  God  is  a  spirit,  infinite  in  being  and  perfection." 


Larger  and  Shorter.  435 

even  more  unreservedly,  of  the  exposition  of  the 
ten  commandments  and  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  as 
concerns  NichoU  and  Ussher.'  But  one  of  the 
most  singular  and  unexpected  disclosures  brought 
to  light  in  the  recently  published  Minutes  of  the 
Assembly  is  that,  while  the  early  draft  of  the  cate- 
chism in  1645  treated  first  of  crcdcuda,  then  of 
the  ten  commandments,  and  so  left  to  the  last  the 
means  of  grace  and  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  while 
the  Larger  Catechism  as  finally  adjusted  followed 
the  same  order,  yet,  as  first  entered  on  the  Minutes 
of  the  Assembly  in  1647,  it  treats  of  the  means 
of  grace  or  the  word,  sacraments,  and  prayer,  be- 
fore it  expounds  the  commandments,  in  this  follow- 
ing the  plan  of  Ball's  and  some  other  catechisms, 
and  showing  that,  if  not  in  details,  yet  in  outline 
and  method,  the  divines  followed  some  previous 
manual  on  the  same  plan  as  his — possibly  that 
small  one  of  date  1542,  attributed  to  Calvin, — 
which,  after  beinc:  loncf  lost,  has  been  brouorht  to 
light  recently  by  M.  Douen,  and  printed  as  an  ap- 
pendix to  the  second  volume  of  his  Huguenot 
Psalter.  At  least  they  follow  its  plan  more  ex- 
actly than  that  of  Ball ;  and  the  statement  of 
Baillie,  given  on  page  426,  is  sufficient  to  show 

^  Dr.  Schaff  in  his  Creeds  of  Chrisk'udorn  iugg^hi's,  that  the  treatise 
of  Wollebius,  entitled  Con/peiu/iuf/i  Theologiir,  or  An  Abridgmeut 
of  Christian  Divinity,  may  also  have  been  drawn  upon.  So  also 
possibly  may  have  been  the  Exposition  of  the  Heidelberg  Cate- 
chisjn. 


436  The  Assembly  s  Catechisms, 

that  the  question  of  method  continued  long  to 
divide  them.  Their  detailed  and  elaborate  an- 
swers in  the  several  parts  of  this  catechism  are, 
even  when  founded  on  previous  treatises,  care- 
fully matured  expansions  of  the  answers  given  in 
these.  I  shall  try  to  find  room  in  the  Appendix 
(O)  for  one  specimen  of  this,  furnished  by  the 
rules  they  have  provided  for  the  exposition  of  the 
commandments,  on  the  principles  set  forth  in  our 
Lord's  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  These  rules  had 
been  more  and  more  elaborated  in  the  larger 
Puritan  catechisms  from  the  days  of  Whitaker 
and  Cartwright  to  those  of  Ball  and  Ussher,  and 
were  finally  brought  as  near  to  perfection  as  they 
could  well  be  by  Dr.  Gouge  and  Mr.  Walker — 
the  sub-committee  appointed  to  prepare  them — 
probably  with  the  help  of  Dr.  Tuckney,  who  by 
that  time  was  acting  as  chairman  of  the  Commit- 
tee on  the  Catechism,  and  is  supposed  to  have 
taken  a  very  special  charge  of  the  exposition  of  the 
ten  commandments.  The  Larger  Catechism  was 
completed  on  15th  October  1647,  read  over  in  the 
Assembly  on  20th  by  Dr.  Burgess,  and  on  the 
22d  was  carried  up  to  the  two  Houses  ^  by  the 
Prolocutor  and  the  whole  Assembly,  when  thanks 
were  returned  to  them  "  for  their  great  labor  and 
pains  in  compiling  this  Long  Catechism."  It  ap- 
pears to  have  been  presented  in  manuscript  to  the 

1  Lords'  Journals,  ix.  p.  488 j  Commons'  Joiunals,  v.  p.  340. 


Larger  and  Shorter,  ^-iyl 

Scottish  Assembly  in  July  1647,  so  far  as  it  was 
then  completed,  and  on  the  17th  September  cer- 
tain alterations  desired  by  their  Commission  were 
made  at  Westminster.  It  was  approved  by  the 
General  Assembly  on  20th  July  1648.^  It  was 
presented  with  the  proofs  on   14th  April   1648. 

The  Shorter  Catechism  was  not  put  into  final 
shape  till  after  the  Larger  one  had  been  virtually 
completed,  though  it  perhaps  embodies  somewhat 
more  of  the  materials  of  the  earlier  manual,  which 
had  partially  passed  the  Assembly  in  1646.  Drs. 
Belfrage,  Hetherington,  and  the  younger  M'Crie, 
relying  on  Neal's  account,  have  stated  that  the 
shorter  one  was  first  completed  and  presented  to 
Parliament.  But  Neal  has  fallen  into  the  error 
of  overlooking  the  fact,  that  the  Larger  Catechism, 
without  proofs,  was  presented  to  Parliament  on 
22d  October  1647,  as  well  as  with  proofs  on  14th 
April  1648,  while  the  Shorter  Catechism,  without 
proofs,  was  only  sent  up  on  25th  November  1647, 
and  again  with  proofs  on  14th  April  1648.^  The 
following  are  the  brief  notices  respecting  it  found 
in  the  Minutes  of  the  Assembly. 

On  5th  August  1647,  it  was  resolved  (p.  408) 
"  that  the  Shorter  Catechism  shall  be  gone  in 
hand  with  presently,  by  a  committee  now  to  be 
chosen,"  and  ordered  that  "  the   Prolocutor,  Mr. 

^  Peterkin's  Records  of  Kirk,  p.  496. 
2  Minutes,  pp.  485,  492,  511. 


43  8  The  Assembly's  Catechisms, 

Palmer,  Dr.  Temple,  Mr.  Lightfoot,  Mr.  Greene,. 
Mr.  Delmy,  shall  be  this  committee."  It  was  to 
meet  the  same  afternoon,  and  Mr.  Palmer  to  take 
care  of  it,  or  be  its  convener.  On  August  9th, 
"  a  report  of  the  Short  Catechism  was  made  by 
Mr.  Palmer;  and  Mr.  Calamy  and  Mr.  Gower 
were  added  to  the  committee."  ^  This  is  the  last 
occasion  in  which  the  Minutes  notice  the  presence 
of  Mr.  Palmer  in  the  Assembly,  and  shortly  after 
this  he  fell  into  a  serious  illness  and  died.  The 
exact  date  of  his  death  has  not  been  ascertained 
even  by  Dr.  Grosart,  who  has  so  carefully  investi- 
gated his  history ;  but  by  28th  September  a  suc- 
cessor had  been  presented  to  one  of  the  charges 
held  by  him.  On  August  loth  "  Dr.  Temple  made 
report  of  the  Lesser  Catechism."  On  September 
8th,  Mr.  Wilson  was  added  to  the  committee  for 
the  catechism,  and  the  same  day  Mr.  Wilson  made 
report  of  the  catechism.  On  September  i6th,  a 
further  order  was  given  to  proceed  with  the  little 
catechism.  It  was  not,  however,  till  19th  October 
1647,  when  the  Larger  Catechism  was  ready  to 
be  presented  to  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament, 
that  orders  were  given  to  Messrs.  Tuckney,^  Mar- 
shall, and  Ward  finally  to  adjust  the  Shorter  one, 
yet  no  doubt  preparation  was  being  made  for  it 
during  the  interval  by  the  committee  previously 

^  Mimites,  pp.  408-410. 

"^  Ibid.,  p.  485,     Cambridge  gave  him  leave  of  absence  for  a 
time  from  his  charge  there. 


Larger  and  Shorter.  439 

appointed,  probably  along  with  Wallis,  who  ulti- 
mately attended  the  committee  as  its  secretary, 
and  who  in  all  likelihood  had  been  privately  as- 
sisting his  friend  Palmer  with  it  during  the  last 
weeks  of  his  life/  On  21st  October  the  first  re- 
port from  this  new  committee  was  brought  in  by 
Tuckney,  and  discussed.  Some  debate  arose  as 
to  whether  the  word  "  substance,"  or  rather  the 
expression  "  one  in  substance,"  in  the  answer  to 
the  question.  How  many  persons  are  there  in  the 
Godhead  ?  should  be  left  out.  This,  we  know, 
was  not  done,  but "  one  in  substance  "  was  changed 
into  "  the  same  in  substance,"  a  closer  rendering 
of  the  Nicene  b/ioo'jfftos,  and  the  phrase  **  equal  in 
substance,  power  and  glory,"  originally  used  in  the 
Larger  Catechism,  was  changed  to  the  same  form  as 
in  the  Shorter.  No  further  particulars  of  the  de- 
bates on  this  catechism  are  given  in  the  Minutes,  but 
nothing  save  formal  business  was  transacted  in  the 
Assembly  till  it  had  been  finished.  On  8th  Novem- 
ber, it  is  recorded  that  the  Commandments,  Lord's 
Prayer,  and  Creed  were  added  to  the  catechism,  and 
on  the  following  day  that  Mr.  Rutherfurd  took  his 
leaveofthe  Assembly,  receiving  the  thanks  of  the  As- 
sembly, through  the  Prolocutor  for  the  great  assist- 
ance he  had  rendered  to  it  in  its  labors  and  debates.^ 

'  He  was  evidently  :\.  protege  of  Palmer  and  a  fellow  in  Queen's 
College  of  which  Palmer  was  master. 

'^  Minutes,  pp.  487,  488.  On  15th  October,  when  the  completion 
of  the  Larger  Catechism  was  reported,  Mr.  Rutherfurd  moved,  and 


440  The  Assembly  s   Catechisms, 

On  the  same  day,  Mr.  Burgess  and  Mr.  Cawdrey 
were  added  to  the  committee,  along  with  WaUis, 
for  the  review  of  the  catechism.  All  was  again 
reviewed  by  the  committee,  and  discussed  by  the 
Assembly  before  the  25  th  November.  The  brief 
statement  originally  prepared  as  a  preface  was 
appended  as  a  postscript.  Messrs.  Nye  and  Rey- 
nor  dissented  from  the  insertion  of  the  Creed  at 
the  end  of  the  catechism,  but  possibly  the  terms 
of  the  postscript  just  referred  to,  and  the  explana- 
tion added  some  days  later  as  to  the  sense  in 
which  the  Article  "  he  descended  into  hell  "  was 
to  be  understood,  may  have  satisfied  their  scruples.^ 
Though  in  Scotland,  as  elsewhere,  this  catechism 
has  been,  and  deservedly  so,  the  most  popular  of 
all  the  productions  of  the  Assembly,  it  was  the 
one  with  the  elaboration  of  which  the  Scotch 
Commissioners  had  least  to  do.  Henderson  had 
left  and  had  died  before  the  Confession  was  com- 
pleted. Baillie  left  immediately  after  it  was 
finished,  and  took  down  with  him  to  Scotland  the 
first  copy  of  the  Confession,  without  proofs.  Gil- 
lespie, after  repeated  petitions  to  be  allowed  to 

the  Assembly  ordered,  "  that  it  be  recorded  in  the  scribes'  books 
that  the  Assembly  hath  enjoyed  the  assistance  of  the  honorable 
reverend  and  learned  commissioners  from  the  Church  of  Scotland, 
in  the  work  of  the  Assembly  during  all  the  time  of  the  debating 
and  perfecting  the  four  things  mentioned  in  the  Covenant,  viz.,  the 
Directory  for  Worship,  the  Confession  of  Faith,  Form  of  Church- 
Government,  and  Catechism." — Ibid.,  p.  484. 
^  Minutes,  pp.  490,  492. 


Larger  and  Shorter. 


441 


return  home,  received  permission  to  leave  in  May 
1647,  when  the  proofs  for  the  Confession  had  been 
completed,  but  while  the  debates  on  the  Larger 
Catechism  were  still  going  on,  and  the  answer  to 
the  question,  What  is  God  ? — with  which  his  name 
has  been  traditionally  associated — had  not  as  yet 
been  adjusted  for  that  Catechism,  much  less  for 
the  Shorter  one.^     It  still  remained  in  the  same 

^  Even  three  months  after  he  left  London  all  that  he  was  able 
to  report  to  the  Scottish  Assembly  respecting  the  catechisms  was 
that  the  divines  "  have  had  no  time  yet  to  do  anything  in  the  lat- 
ter, but  here  is  the  copy  of  the  greater,  zahich  is  almost  cowpletey 
The  only  instance  in  which  we  can  be  very  sure  that  he  has  left  his 
mark  on  the  Confession  is  that  (in  ch.  xvi.  Miscellany  Questions) 
pointed  out  some  years  ago  by  Professor  Candlish  : 

"  Theheavenliness  of  the  mat-  The  Scripture  is  known  to  be 
ter,  the  efficacy  of  the  doctrine,     indeed  the  word  of  God  by  the 

beams  of  divine  authority  which 
it  hath  in  itself,  .  .  .  such  as  the 
heavenliness  of  the  matter,  the 
majesty  of  the  style,  the  irresis- 
tible power  over  the  conscience, 
the  general  scope  to  abase  man, 
and  to  exalt  God ;  nothing 
driven  at  but  God's  glory  and 
man's  salvation,  ...  the  super- 
natural mysteries  revealed  there- 
in, which  could  never  have 
entered  into  the  reason  of  man, 
the  marvellous  consent  of  all 
parts  and  passages  (though  writ- 
ten by  divers  and  several  pen- 
men), even  where  there  is  some 
appearance  of  difference,  .  .  . 
these  and  the  like  are  characters 
and  marks  which  evidence  the 
Scriptures  to  be  the  word  of  God. 


the  majesty  of  the  style,  the  con- 
sent of  all  the  parts,  the  scope  of 
the  whole  (which  is  to  give  all 
glory  to  God),  the  full  discovery 
it  makes  of  the  only  way  of  man's 
salvation,  the  many  other  incom- 
prehensible excellencies  and  the 
entire  perfection  thereof,  are  ar- 
guments whereby  it  doth  abun- 
dantly manifest  itself  to  be  the 
word  of  God." — Confession  of 
Faith,  ch.  i.  Z  v. 


442  The  Asstvnbiy  s   Catechisms ^ 

brief  form  as  it  bears  in  the  earliest  draft  of  the  As- 
sembly and  in  the  catechetical  manuals  of  Cart- 
wrieht  and  Ussher.  Even  Rutherfurd  had  been 
seized  with  a  fit  of  home-sickness,  and  wrote 
that  he  did  not  think  the  elaboration  of  this 
catechism  of  sufficient  importance  to  detain 
him  from  his  college  and  his  flock  at  St.  An- 
drews. At  any  rate,  though  persuaded  to  re- 
main till  it  had  passed,  so  to  speak,  the  first 
reading,  he  does  not  seem  to  have  left  his  dis- 
tinctive mark  on  it.  Not  the  faintest  trace  of 
that  wealth  of  homely  imagery,  which  enriches  the 
MS.  catechism  attributed  to  him,  is  to  be  found 
in  the  Assembly's  Shorter  Catechism.  From  first 
to  last,  it  appears  to  me  in  its  clear,  condensed, 
and  at  times  almost  frigidly  logical  definitions,  to 
give  unmistakable  evidence  of  its  having  passed 
through  the  alembic  of  Dr.  Wallis,  the  great  mathe- 
matician, the  friend  and  protege  of  Palmer,  the 
opponent  of  Hobbes  and  the  Socinians,  and  prob- 
ably the  last  survivor  of  those  connected  with  the 
great  Assembly  who  was  not  ashamed  to  speak 
of  the  benefit  he  had  derived  from  its  discussions 
during  the  preparation  of  its  Confession  and  Cate- 
chisms, long  after  he  had  conformed  to  the  Church 
of  the  Restoration.^     The  Shorter  Catechism  con- 


^  Wodrow  and  both  the  M'Cries  seem  to  look  on  his  claim  to 
the  authorship  of  this  catechism  with  a  certain  amount  of  favor. 
Dr.  Belfrage  refers  to  a  "  theologian  of  great  research  "  who  favors 


Larger  and  SJiortcr,  443 

tains,  as  I  have  just  told  you,  more  of  the  mate- 
rials of  the  catechism  partially  passed  by  the  As- 
sembly in  1646  than  the  Larger  does,  but  not  in 
a  shape  which  brings  them  nearer  to  the  form  of 
Palmer's  original  work.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  a 
thoroughly  Calvinistic  and  Puritan  catechism,  the 
ripest  fruit  of  the  Assembly's  thought  and  expe- 
rience, maturing  and  finally  fixing  the  definitions 
of  theological  terms  to  which  Puritanism  for  half 
a  century  had  been  leading  up  and  gradually 
coming  closer  and  closer  in  its  legion  of  cate- 
chisms. It  differs  in  one  or  two  things  even  from 
the  Larger  Catechism,  composed  just  before  it. 
Its  second  question  as  to  the  rule  of  faith,  if  in 
more  concise  form  than  the  third  question  of  the 
other,  is  more  direct  and  emphatic.  Its  definition 
of  God  is  more  happy,  and,  as  already  mentioned, 
is  from  a  different  source.  It  does  not  insert  its 
definitions  of  faith  and  repentance  where  the 
other  has  them,  but  holds  them  over  till  its  third 
part,  when  it  comes  to  treat  of  the  way  of  salva- 
tion and  the  means  of  grace.  And  while,  as  I 
have  said,  it  is  a  thoroughly  Calvinistic  catechism, 
it  has  nothing  of  church  censures,  church  courts, 
or  church  officers,  as  many  similar  productions 
have.  Nay,  it  does  not  even  have  a  definition  of 
the  Church,  whether  visible  or  invisible,  like  the 

that  of  Arrowsniith,  but  he  does  not  appear  to  have  been  a  mem- 
ber of  the  committee  or  in  attendance  on  the  Assembly  at  that  time. 


444  ^^^^  Assembly  s  CatccJiisvis, 

Larger  Catechism  and  the  Confession  of  Faith, 
but  only  an  incidental  reference  to  it  in  connec- 
tion with  the  answer  to  the  question,  To  whom  is 
baptism  to  be  administered  ?  It  would  seem  as  if 
in  this  their  simplest  yet  noblest  symbol  they 
wished,  as  far  as  Calvinists  could  do  so,  to  eliminate 
from  their  statements  all  that  was  subordinate  or 
unessential — all  relating  to  the  mere  organization 
of  Christians  as  an  external  conmiunity — all  in 
which  they  differed  from  sound  Protestant  Episco- 
palians on  the  one  hand,  and  from  the  less  un- 
sound of  the  sectaries  on  the  other,  and  to  make  a 
supreme  effort  to  provide  a  worthy  catechism  in 
which  all  the  Protestant  youth  in  the  country 
might  be  trained.  So  highly  was  the  effort 
appreciated  at  the  time  that  the  king,  no  doubt 
with  the  sanction  of  Ussher  and  his  fellow-chap- 
lains, in  some  of  his  latest  negotiations  with  the 
Parliament,  offered  to  license  it,  while  still  hesitat- 
ing to  accept  the  Directories  for  Public  Worship 
and  for  Church-Government  as  they  had  been 
drawn  up  by  the  Assembly.  It  was  no  sooner 
passed  by  the  Parliament  and  published  than  it 
became  widely  popular  in  England,  and  it  main- 
tained its  popularity  in  a  wonderful  degree  even 
after  the  sad  reverses  which  befell  its  authors  in 
1662.  For  more  than  a  century  after  that,  it  was 
the  most  widely  recognized  manual  of  instruction, 
not  only  among  Presbyterians  but  also  among  the 


Largc7^  and  Shorter.  445 

other  orthodox  Dissenters.  The  Independents 
used  it  both  in  England  and  America.  The 
Baptists  used  it  with  a  very  few  alterations,  and 
in  the  i8th  century  that  great  evangelist  John 
Wesley,  who  was  ever  ready  to  adapt  to  his  own 
purposes  good  books  prepared  by  others  holding 
opinions  considerably  different  from  his  own,  al- 
lowed it  to  circulate  among  his  societies  in  a  modi- 
fied form.  It  was  early  translated  into  Latin, 
Greek,  Hebrew,  and  has  been  retranslated  in  our 
own  day  into  Hebrew  and  Syriac,  and  into  most 
modern  languages  both  in  the  east  and  the  west. 
When  about  forty  years  ago  I  visited  the  Leb- 
anon schools,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Beyrout, 
I  was  greatly  interested  to  find  that  the  American 
missionaries  not  only  taught  this  old  catechism 
to  the  Druse  and  Maronite  children,  but  also 
taught  it  in  the  old  Scottish  form  which  has  now 
all  but  disappeared  at  home,  making  it  the  first 
reading-book,  having  the  A  B  C  at  the  beginning, 
and  a  syllabary  corresponding  to  our  a,  b,  ab;  e,  b, 
eb,  etc,  but  of  course  all  in  orthodox  Arabic. 

The  guiding  principle  of  the  Assembly  and  its 
committee  in  its  composition  was  that  announced 
by  Dr.  Seaman  in  one  of  the  earliest  debates  about 
it,  viz.,  *'  That  the  greatest  care  should  be  taken  to 
frame  the  answer  not  according  to  the  model  of 
the  knowledge  the  child  hath,  but  according  to 
that  the  child  ou^ht  to  have."     And  if  too  little 


44^  The  Assembly  s  Catechis77tSy 

care  was  taken  in  former  times  to  teach  it  intelli- 
gently to  the  young,  and  gradually  to  open  up  its 
full  meaning  to  them,  yet,  as  Dr.  M'Crie  has  well 
observed,  "  the  objection  was  pushed  too  far  when 
it  was  maintained  that  without  a  full  scientific  un- 
derstanding of  its  doctrines  it  is  useless  to  acquire 
familiarity  with  their  phraseology  and  contents. 
The  pupil  must  learn  the  rudiments  of  Greek  and 
Latin  long  before  he  can  comprehend  the  use  of 
them,  or  apply  them  as  a  key  to  unlock  the  trea- 
sures of  ancient  learning  [in  fact,  in  all  Churches 
he  is  first  taught  his  Christian  creed  in  this  way], 
and  experience  has  shown  that  few  who  have  been 
carefully  instructed  in  our  Shorter  Catechism  have 
failed  to  discover  the  advantage  of  becoming 
acquainted  in  early  life,  even  as  a  task,  with  that 
admirable  form  of  sound  words."  For  three 
quarters  of  a  century  past,  I  do  not  believe  that 
intelligent  teachers  of  the  Catechism  have  been 
rare,  either  in  the  parochial  or  in  the  Sabbath 
schools  of  Scotland,  and  with  the  helps  with  which 
Gall  and  others,  who  have  drawn  on  the  older 
stores  of  Wallis  and  Palmer  and  Lye,  have  pro- 
vided them,  there  is  no  excuse  for  any  teacher 
making  the  study  of  it  an  irksome  task,  or  falling 
in  a  good  measure  to  bring  it  down  to  the  capaci- 
ties and  home  to  the  hearts  of  his  pupils.  I  am 
but  fulfilling  a  simple  duty  when  I  thus  publicly 
express  my  deep  gratitude  to  my  teachers,  both  in 


Larger  mid  Shorter.  447 

the  day-school  and  in  the  Sabbath-school  for  the 
uniform  pains  they  took  to  make  the  study  of  it 
interesting-  and  attractive.  I  can  confidently  affirm 
that  I  found  their  instructions  of  no  small  advantage 
when  I  proceeded  to  the  more  systematic  study  of 
theology,  and  I  shall  never  lose  hope  of  the  living 
orthodoxy  of  the  Presbyterian  Churches  while  their 
rising  ministry  and  church-members  are  intelli- 
gently and  affectionately  trained  in  the  Shorter 
Catechism,  and  set  themselves  to  train  their  flocks 
in  it  as  good  old  Principal  Hill  used  to  recommend 
them  to  do. 

In  a  paper  I  put  in  type  toward  the  close  of 
1880,  and  published  in  1886,^  I  have  endeavored 
pretty  fully  to  trace  out  the  sources  of  the  several 
answers  in  this  Catechism,  or  at  least  to  indicate 
the  many  points  of  contact  and  resemblance  be- 
tween them  and  those  of  the  earlier  Puritan  cate- 
chisms, several  of  which  had  been  composed  by 
members  of  the  Assembly.  The  exercise  has  been 
interesting  to  myself,  and  I  trust  its  results  will  not 
be  uninteresting  to  many  of  my  brethren.  It  shows 
how  gradually  in  the  stream  of  successive  cate- 
chisms those  definitions  of  theological  terms  which 
were  ultimately  to  be  perfected  and  crystalized, 
so  to  speak,  at  Westminster,  were  developed  and 
matured,  and  more  and  more  widely  accepted.  I 
cannot  within  the  compass  of  this  lecture  enter 

1  Catechism  of  the  Second  Reformation  alreaily  referred  to. 


44S  The  Assembly  s  Catechisms, 

into  details,  but  I  may  say  generally  before  closing, 
that  so  far  as  plan  and  the  order  of  the  questions 
or  interrogatories  is  concerned,  I  regard  the  little 
catechism  of  Ezekiel  Rogers,  who  was  a  minister 
first  in  Yorkshire,  and  latterly  in  New  England,  as 
most  closely  resembling  the  Assembly's  Shorter 
Catechism.  The  answers  in  his  little  treatise  are 
much  more  simple  and  elementary,  the  exposition 
of  the  ten  commandments  is  in  the  briefest 
possible  form,  and  the  verbal  coincidences  in 
individual  answers  are  few.  But  all  is  there  in 
miniature,  and  almost  all  in  the  same  order  as 
in  the  later  and  fuller  catechism.  The  plan  of 
M.  N.'s  (or  as  I  suppose,  Newcomen's  or  NichoU's) 
Catechism  is  very  similar  also,  the  execution  is 
much  more  detailed,  especially  in  the  exposition 
of  the  commandments,  and  particular  answers 
frequently  coincide  in  expression  as  well  as  in 
general  meaning  with  those  of  the  Shorter  Cate- 
chism. The  chief  deviation  is,  that  it,  like  that 
of  the  Church  of  England  and  several  of  the  more 
moderate  Puritan  catechisms,  begins  by  remind- 
ing the  catechumen  of  his  baptism,  and  of  the 
privileges  and  responsibilities  arising  out  of  it. 
Next  perhaps  in  point  of  resemblance  stand  the 
catechisms  of  Gouge  and  Ball.  The  author  of  the 
former  was  an  influential  member  of  the  Assembly, 
and  his  treatise  has  many  verbal  coincidences  with 
that  prepared  by  them,  but  it  deviates  so  far  from 


Lai^gei^  and  SJioi'ter.  449 

it  in  plan  by  placing  the  exposition  of  the  com- 
mandments before  the  explanation  of  the  doctrines 
of  the  Christian  faith.  A  similar  remark  applies 
to  Ball's  treatise,  entitled  A  Short  Catechism. 
This  has  decidedly  more  verbal  coincidences  with 
the  Assembly's  Shorter  Catechism  in  the  answers 
to  particular  questions,  but  it  deviates  farther  in 
plan,  treating  first  of  doctrine,  then  of  the  means 
of  grace,  preaching,  prayer,  exposition  of  the 
Lord's  Prayer  and  of  the  sacraments,  of  the  Church 
and  Church  censures,  and  finally  expounding  the 
commandments,  and  concluding  with  a  few  gen- 
eral questions.  Palmer's  Catechism,  as  already 
stated,  is  similar  in  general  plan,  with  the  excep- 
tion that,  like  the  Anglican  Catechism,  it  treats 
of  prayer  and  the  Lord's  Prayer  before  it  treats  of 
the  sacraments,  and  that  it  moulds  its  exposition 
of  doctrine  closely  on  the  Apostle's  Creed.  It 
was  unquestionably  on  the  basis  of  its  first  part 
the  divines  began  to  work  in  1645,  but  so  many 
of  its  historical  questions  have  been  omitted  in 
the  course  of  their  successive  revisions,  and  so 
much  that  was  needed  to  explain  and  define  im- 
portant doctrines  of  the  Christian  system  has  been 
added,  that  the  similarity  is  not  now  so  marked 
in  that  first  part,  much  less  in  the  others,  as,  from 
the  fact  mentioned,  one  might  have  expected. 
The  only  trace  the  Shorter  Catechism  perhaps 
now  bears  of  having  been  moulded  on  one  which 

29 


450  The  Assembly  s  Catechisms^ 

had  the  Apostle's  Creed  for  the  basis  of  its  first 
or  doctrinal  part  is  that,  at  the  close  of  that  part, 
it  takes  account  only  of  the  eternal  state  of  be- 
lievers. But,  strange  as  the  fact  may  seem,  it 
deviates  in  this  from  Palmer's,  and  from  almost 
every  other  catechism — NichoU's,  however,  as  in 
so  many  other  things,  coming  nearest  to  it.  The 
only  way  in  which  one,  who  knows  how  strongly 
its  authors  speak  in  other  parts  of  the  desert  of  sin 
and  the  endless  misery  in  reserve  for  the  impeni- 
tent, can  account  for  no  reference  being  made  to 
these  topics  in  this  place  is,  that  the  divines  were 
expounding  the  last  article  of  the  Apostles'  Creed, 
and  had  in  view  only  the  case  of  those  who  could 
truly  say,  "  I  believe  in  the  resurrection  of  the 
body,  and  the  life  everlasting,"  and  did  not  deem 
themselves  bound  even  incidentally  to  advert  to 
the  future  of  those  who  had  neither  part  nor  lot 
in  Christ  and  his  great  salvation. 

The  title  sanctioned  by  the  English  Parliament 
for  this  catechism  was  not  that  originally  fixed  on 
by  the  Assembly  itself,  and  by  which  it  is  now 
universally  known,  but  the  following  expansion 
of  it : — "  The  Grounds  and  Principles  of  Religion 
contained  in  a  Shorter  Catechism  (according  to 
the  advice  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines  sitting  at 
Westminster),  to  be  used  throughout  the  king- 
dom of  England  and  dominion  of  Wales."  ^     It 

^  For  procedure  of  the  Houses,  see  Minutes  of  Assembly,  p.  511. 


Larger  and  Shorter,  451 

seems  to  have  had  the  approval  of  the  divines, 
and  at  least  ten  or  twelve  editions  of  it  with  this 
title  were  published  in  England  before  1720. 

Between  21st  October  and  19th  November  the 
Catechism  may  be  said  to  have  passed  the  first 
and  second  reading  in  the  Assembly,  and;  with- 
out proofs,  it  was  presented  to  the  House  of 
Commons  on  the  25th,  and  to  the  House  of  Lords 
on  the  26th  November.  It  was  presented  with 
proofs  on  14th  April  1648,  and  by  25  th  Septem- 
ber 1648  it  had  been  passed  by  the  Houses,  with 
the  above  title.  It  was  approved  by  the  General 
Assembly  of  Scotland  on  28th  July  1648,  and 
their  Acts  in  regard  to  it  and  the  Larger  Catechism 
were  ratified  by  the  Estates  of  the  Scottish  Parlia- 
ment on  7th  February  1649.  No  express  mention 
is  made  of  it  or  the  Larger  Catechism  in  the  Act 
re-establishing  Presbytery  after  the  Revolution, 
but  it  has  always  retained  its  place  of  honor  in 
the  Presbyterian  Churches  in  Scotland,  as  else- 
where, as  the  most  widely  known  and  most  highly 
valued  of  our  doctrinal  symbols. 

Richard  Baxter's  opinion  of  this  Catechism  was 
very  high,  and  his  testimony  to  its  merits  very 
emphatic :  "  I  do  heartily  approve,"  he  says,  "  of 
the  Shorter  Catechism  of  the  Assembly,  and  of 
all  therein  contained,  and  I  take  it  for  the  best 
catechism  that  ever  I  yet  saw,  and  the  answers 
continued  (that  is,  I   suppose,   read  continuously) 


452  The  Assembly  s  Catechisms, 

for  a  most  excellent  summary  of  the  Christian 
faith  and  doctrine,  and  a  fit  test  to  try  the  ortho- 
doxy of  teachers  themselves."  Nay,  he  adds  that, 
"  for  the  innate  worth  of  it,  he  prefers  it  to  any  of 
the  writings  of  the  Fathers,  and  that  he  takes  the 
labors  of  the  Assembly,  and  especially  the  Con- 
fession and  Catechisms,  as  the  best  book  next  his 
bible  in  his  study."  The  sainted  Leighton  seems 
also  to  have  had  a  high  opinion  of  it,  and  admits 
that  the  thoughts  we  find  in  it  on  the  awful  sub- 
ject of  the  divine  decrees  "  are  few,  sober,  clear, 
and  certain."  Principal  Hill  speaks  with  high 
commendation  of  the  Catechism  and  the  system 
of  teaching  it  followed  by  the  ministers  of  his 
day :  "  Considered  as  a  system  of  divinity,"  he 
says,  "  this  catechism  is  entitled  to  much  admira- 
tion. It  has  nothing  superfluous ;  the  words  are 
chosen  with  uncommon  skill,  and  the  answer  to 
almost  every  question  is  a  text  on  which  a  person 
versant  in  such  subjects  can  easily  enlarge, . . .  and 
in  the  hands  of  an  experienced,  attentive  exam- 
iner, .  .  .  the  catechism  may  be  made  completely 
to  answer  the  purpose  of  leading  the  people  to 
the  apprehension  of  Christian  doctrine  and  of  the 
extent  of  Christian  duty." 

The  opinion  of  Dr.  Schaff  in  our  own  day,  if, 
as  becomes  a  German,  somewhat  more  guarded 
than  Baxter's,  is  hardly  less  remarkable.  He 
says :    "  The    Shorter   Catechism    is    one    of    the 


Larger  and  SJiorter,  453 

three  typical  catechisms  of  Protestantism  which 
are  Hkely  to  last  to  the  end  of  time.  It  is  fully 
equal  to  Luther's  and  to  the  Heidelberg  Cate- 
chism in  ability  and  influence ;  it  far  surpasses 
them  in  clearness  and  careful  wording  (or,  as  he 
elsewhere  says,  in  brevity,  terseness,  and  accuracy 
of  definition),  and  is  better  adapted  to  the  Scottish 
and  Anglo-American  mind ;  but  it  lacks  their 
genial  warmth,  freshness,  and  child-like  simplicity." 
Perhaps  quite  as  noteworthy  are  the  words  he 
quotes  from  Carlyle,  who,  when  testifying  against 
modern  materialism,  thus  expressed  himself: — 
**  The  older  I  grow — and  I  now  stand  upon  the 
brink  of  eternity — the  more  comes  back  to  me 
the  first  sentence  in  the  catechism  which  I  learned 
when  a  child,  and  the  fuller  and  deeper  its  mean- 
ing becomes :  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ? — 
To  glorify  God,  and  enjoy  him  forever." 


LECTURE   XIII. 

CONCLUSION    AND    RESULTS    OF    THE    ASSEMBLY. 

With  the  completion  of  the  Catechisms  the 
work  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  may  be  said 
to  have  come  to  an  end.  Even  before  they  were 
finished,  the  attendance  had  fallen  off  considerably, 
and  it  dwindled  still  further  after  they  were  out  of 
hand,  till  there  was  often  difficulty  in  obtaining  the 
attendance  of  the  forty  members  required  to  change 
a  committee  into  a  formal  meeting  of  the  Assembly. 
Rutherfurd,  the  last  of  the  original  Scottish  Com- 
missioners, had  taken  his  departure  in  November 
1647,  and  it  is  more  than  doubtful  whether  Blair, 
who  came  up  the  following  autumn,  was  ever 
admitted  to  take  his  seat.  The  Assembly  after 
1647  seems  to  have  occupied  itself  chiefly  in  getting 
ready  for  publication  its  answers  to  the  reasons  of 
the  dissenting  brethren,  in  vindication  of  their 
dissents  from  the  decisions  of  the  Assembly  on 
the  subject  of  the  presbyterial  government  of  the 
church,  and  the  ordination  of  its  ministers,  as  well 
as  to  certain  papers  they  had  given  in  to  the 
committee  on  accommodation.^     The  divines  also 

^  These,  as  stated  on  p.  206,  were  published  in  1648,  and  with 
a  new  title-page  in  1652. 
454 


Conclusion  and  Rcsnlts.  455 

resumed  consideration  of  the  Queries  of  the  House 
of  Commons  regarding  the  jus  divinuni  of  church- 
government,  and  made  further  progress  in  putting 
into  shape  their  answers  to  them,  but  they  do  not 
appear  to  have  completed  their  labors  or  to  have 
presented  the  results  of  them  to  the  House. 
Their  sessions  continue  to  be  numbered  till  22d 
February  1648-9,  which  is  marked  as  Session  1 163. 
After  that  date  they  met  chiefly  as  a  committee 
for  the  examination  of  presentees  to  benefices  and 
of  candidates  for  license  till  25th  March  1652. 
Whether  their  meetings  ceased  at  that  date,  or 
whether,  though  no  record  of  them  is  now  extant, 
they  were  continued  till  the  dismissal  of  the  Long 
Parliament  by  Cromwell  in  the  following  year,  has 
not  as  yet  been  positively  ascertained.  By  the 
departure  of  the  Scottish  army  from  F^ngland  in 
1646-7,^  the  unique  influence  of  Scotland  on  Eng- 
land in  matters  of  both  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
policy  was  sadly  weakened ;  and  by  the  ill-starred 
invasion  of  England  by  the  Duke  of  Hamilton 
and  the  adherents  of  the  "  Unlawful  Engagement," 
nominally  to  insure  the  restoration  of  Charles  to 
his  regal  power  on  Covenanting  terms,  but  really 
to  secure  his  deliverance  from  his  Sectarian  jailers 
on  terms  less  onerous,  that  influence  may  be  said 
to  have  been  finally  extinguished,  and  the  calamity 
the  invaders  sought  to  avert  rendered  all  but  inevi- 

1  See  p.  zr:,. 


45  6  Couches  ion  and  Re  stills 

table.  Not  that  the  dim  idea  of  such  a  catastrophe, 
as  was  at  length  hurried  on,  had  not  been  previ- 
ously brooding  in  the  minds  of  the  Army  leaders, 
and  had  been  resolutely  adopted  by  them  when 
the  English  Parliament,  under  the  influence  of  the 
Presbyterian  party,  resolved  to  make  one  more 
effort  to  negotiate  a  satisfactory  treaty  with  the 
King.  The  King,  according  to  his  usual  policy, 
haggled  on  various  matters  on  which  in  the  end 
he  was  obliged  to  give  way,  and,  on  the  5  th 
December  1648,  a  majority  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons voted  "  that  the  King's  offers  afforded  a 
ground  of  settlement."  Then,  without  loss  of  time, 
the  leaders  of  the  Army  ventured  to  assail  the 
freedom  of  Parliament  itself,  and  forcibly  to  ex- 
clude the  chiefs  of  the  Presbyterian  party  from 
taking  their  seats  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
the  House,  thus  maimed,  recalled  its  former  vote, 
and  became  the  obedient  tool  of  its  new  masters, 
claiming  supreme  power  of  legislation  without  the 
concurrence  of  the  House  of  Lords.  One  of  its 
first  acts  was  to  give  effect  to  what  had  been  sim- 
mering in  the  minds  of  the  army  leaders  for  months 
past,^  and  to  declare  the   unfortunate  monarch  to 

^  This  is  clearly  implied  in  various  parts  of  the  "  Remonstrance  " 
of  Fairfax  and  his  officers,  though  the  Remonstrance  itself  only 
came  out  in  November  1848.  See  especially  pp.  48  .  .  .  54. 
"  In  all  cases  of  like  rebellions  or  civil  wars,  the  prudence  of  most 
nations  and  ages  (as  well  as  the  justice  of  the  thing)  has  led  to  fix 
the  exemplary  punishment  first  upon  the  capital  leader,  and  upon 
others  nearest  to  him,  and  not  to  punish  the  inferiors  and  exempt 


of  the  Assembly.  457 

have  been  the  main  cause  of  the  late  wars  and 
bloodshed,  and,  maimed  and  overborne  by  a  fac- 
tion, as  it  was,  to  improvise  a  tribunal  unknown 
to  the  constitution/  for  the  trial  and  punishment 
of  the  King.  The  legality  of  this  tribunal  was 
challenged  by  the  King,  and  he  refused  to  ac- 
knowledge its  authority,  or  to  plead  to  the  indict- 
ment before  it.  He  was  nevertheless  condemned 
to  death,  and  when  on  30th  January  1648-9,  the 
sentence  was  carried  out  in  front  of  his  own  palace 
of  Whitehall,  "  one  dismal  universal  groan  burst 
from  the  horror-stricken  crowd." 

the  chiefs,  so  in  this  case  it  is  most  clear,  that  to  fix  your  justice 
first  upon  the  head  and  thereby  let  his  successors  see  what  them- 
selves may  expect,  if  they  attempt  the  like,  may  hopefully  discour- 
age them  .  .  .  and  so  is  like  to  be  a  real  security,"  p.  50.  "  If 
any  .  .  .  object  that  the  grounds  aforegoing  .  .  .  would  extend, 
as  well  against  any  accommodation  with  him,  since  his  person  came 
into  the  Parliament's  power,  or  at  least  against  any  restitution  there- 
upon (without  his  first  submitting  to  judgment  and  a  change  of 
heart  and  principles)  and,  consequently,  would  have  served  as 
well  against  that  accommodation  with  him,  and  restitution  of  him, 
which  the  Army  seemed  once  to  plead  for,  we  shall  confess  it, 
as  to  the  main,"  p.  51.  And  then  in  the  following  pages  they 
enlarge  on  the  reasons  which  moved  them,  which  were,  first, 
The  Parliament's  engagement  with  Scotland  for  another  address 
to  him ;  and  second,  The  clause  in  the  Solemn  League  and 
Covenant  as  to  the  preservation  of  the  king's  person,  now  to  be 
ignored. 

^  "  The  work  of  military  violence,  clothed  in  the  merest  tatters 
of  legality  ...  the  small  minority  in  Parliament,  which  had  given 
the  semblance  of  constitutional  procedure  to  the  trial  in  Westmins- 
ter Halls,  were  no  more  than  the  instruments  in  the  hands  of  the 
men  of  the  sword." — Gardiner's  History  of  the  Commonwealth, 
vol.  i.  p.  I. 


458  Conclusion  and  Results 

Whatever  doubt  may  exist  as  to  the  action  or 
inaction  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  in  the  case 
of  Archbishop  Laud,  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to 
the  courage  and  promptitude  with  which  its  lead- 
ers and  the  Presbyterian  ministers  of  London  gen- 
erally protested  against  the  judicial  murder  of  the 
King,  nor  as  to  the  earnest  anxiety  they  showed 
to  the  last  to  help  forward  any  settlement  of  out- 
standing differences,  which  would  have  saved  the 
monarchy,  and  afforded  reasonable  security  for  the 
liberties  of  the  Parliament  and  the  Reformation 
of  the  Church.  But  their  fast  friends  and  allies, 
the  Scotch,  had  long  ere  this  returned  to  their 
homes,  and,  when  too  late,  the  Presbyterians  in  the 
south  learned  the  value  of  their  faithful  warnings, 
and  found  they  were  indeed  at  the  mercy  of  that 
Sectarian  Army,  who  were  bent  on  securing  their 
own  ends,  though  these  should  have  to  be  gained 
by  overturning  the  ancient  constitution  of  the 
kingdom,  and  setting  up  in  its  room  a  common- 
wealth in  name — an  oligarchy  ^  or  military  despot- 
ism in  fact.  The  committee  of  the  Scottish  Estates 
had  instructed  their  Commissioners  to  protest 
against  the  trial  of  the  King,  and  the  Commis- 
sioners of  the  Scottish  Assembly,  concurring  in 
the  protest,  expressed  their  utter  detestation  of 
"  so  horrid  a  design  against  his  Majesty's  person," 

1  "  The  oliijarchy  which  had  usurped  the  name  of  a  Common- 
wealth."— Gardiner's  Commonwealth,  vol.  i.  p.  199. 


of  the  Assembly.  459 

and  disclaimed  all  responsibility  for  **  the  miseries, 
confusions,  and  calamities  that  mi^^ht  follow." 
Their  deputy,  Blair,  minister  of  St.  Andrews  and 
Scottish  Chaplain  to  the  King,  expressed  himself 
as  strongly  on  the  enormity  of  this  act  as  the 
most  ardent  Royalist  could  desire,  and  never 
ceased  to  speak  of  the  unfortunate  monarch  in 
terms  of  warm  affection  and  regard.^  His  early 
interviews  with  Cromwell,  on  the  other  hand,  seem 
to  have  left  on  his  mind  impressions  ^  even  less 
favorable  than  those  which  Baxter  and  Ussher 
formed  from  their  intercourse  with  him.  Immedi- 
ately on  learning  that  the  "  horrid  design  "  had 
actually  been  carried  out,  the  conmiittee  of  the 
Scottish  Estates  caused  Charles  II.  to  be  pro- 
claimed as  the  lawful  heir  of  his  father  in  the 
kingdoms  of  Scotland,  England,  and  Ireland,  and 
sent  to  their  Commissioners  in  London  a  copy 
of  the  proclamation,  with  a  remonstrance  to  the 
House  of  Commons,  which  gave  so  great  offense  to 
the  regicides,  that  they  first  imprisoned  the  Com- 
missioners, and  soon  after  ignominiously  dismissed 
them  from  the  kingdom,  under  the  escort  of  a 
troop  of  horse.^  The  Scotch  sent  deputies  to  invite 
the  young  King  to  come  among  them,  subscribe 
their  Covenants,  and  take  possession  of  his  throne. 

1  Blair's  Autobiography  and  Life,  pp.  214,  261,  "a  good  king 
evil-used." 

'^  Ibid.,  p.  210,  "  an  egregious  dissembler  and  a  great  liar." 
^  See  Minutes,  pp.  229,  230,  note. 


460  Conchtsiou  and  Results 

At  first  they  were  unsuccessful,  but  both  ParHa- 
ment  and  Church  persevered  in  their  suit,  and  at 
last  prevailed  on  him  to  accept  their  invitation 
and  terms.  But  he  was  far  from  sincere  in  the 
matter,  and  soon  showed  it  was  dire  necessity,  not 
hearty  consent,  which  made  him  stoop  to  do  so. 
Moreover,  an  extreme  party  had  sprung  up  among 
themselves,  who  were  too  much  in  sympathy  with 
the  Sectaries  of  the  south  and  too  distrustful  of 
their  old  Royalist  countrymen.  In  their  earnest 
desire  to  satisfy  the  scruples  and  disarm  the  hos- 
tility of  these  men,  the  more  moderate  party  con- 
sented to  measures  which  were  harsh  toward  their 
sovereign,  and  toward  many,  who  were  really  eager 
to  forget  past  differences,  and  do  their  utmost  to 
defend  their  native  country  against  the  formidable 
force  which  was  now  preparing  to  assail  it.  Fair- 
fax, having  refused  to  lead  that  force,  resigned  his 
office  as  Commander-in-chief,  which  was  devolved 
on  Cromwell,  who  did  not  share  his  scruples. 

All,  that  the  caution  and  skill  of  experienced 
generals  could  in  the  circumstances  effect  to  force 
him  back  to  England,  was  done  by  the  Leslies 
and  the  troops  under  their  command.  But, 
through  the  interference  and  dictation  of  a  Com- 
mittee of  the  Estates,^  it  is  said,  their  plans  were  at 

^  Had  the  Committee  set  about  purging  the  Army  in  March 
1649,  when  petitioned  by  the  Commission  of  Assembly,  the  action 
might  have  been  both  wise  and  safe,  but  to  insist  on  it  on  the  eve 
of  a  battle  against  the  remonstrances  of  the  General  was  neither 


of  the  Assembly.  461 

last  thwarted,  the  triumph  which  seemed  within 
their  grasp  was  snatched  from  them,  and  a  disaster 
was  inflicted  on  the  nation  which  was  great  in  its 
immediate,  and  still  greater  in  its  remoter  conse- 
quences. Cromwell's  army,  after  its  victory  at 
Dunbar,  returned,  and  for  months  occupied  the 
very  heart  of  the  kingdom.  Nothing  remained 
for  the  young  monarch  after  his  coronation  at 
Scone  in  i65i,but,  as  soon  as  he  could  gather 
together  even  a  less  disciplined  army,  to  summon 
to  his  aid  the  Royalists  of  the  south,  and  to  try 
the  fortune  of  war  in  England.  Few  of  these 
obeyed  his  hurried  call,  and  at  Worcester,  on  3d 
September  165  i  (the  anniversary  of  the  battle  of 
Dunbar),  after  an  obstinately  contested  engage- 
ment,^ the  Scottish  army  was  defeated,  the  sup- 
porters of  the  ancient  constitution  were  crushed, 
Cromwell  "  obtained  his  crowning  mercy,"  and 
the  Sectaries  for  a  time  became  masters  through- 
out the  three  kingdoms.  Many  fancy  pictures 
have  been  drawn  of  the  glories  of  that  period 
in  Scotland  as  well  as  in  England,  of  the  tran- 
quillity of  the  country,  the  purity  of  the  ad- 
ministration,  and    the    comparative   freedom   and 

wise  nor  safe,  and  to  that  action  he  seems  to  attribute  his  defeat. 
"  I  take  God  to  witness  we  might  have  as  easily  defeated  them  as 
we  did  James  Graham  at  Phihphaugh,  if  the  officers  had  staid  by 
their  troops  and  regiments!''' 

^  "  As  stiff  a  contest  for  four  or  five  hours  as  I  have  ever  seen." 
— Cromwell. 


462  Conclusion  and  Results 

contentedness  of  the  people.  These  pictures  still 
require  to  be  greatly  toned  down  to  bring  them 
into  fair  accordance  with  known  facts,  which  only 
the  far  greater  severities  of  the  later  Stuart  regime 
could  have  cast  so  much  into  shade. 

There  can  be  no  question  of  the  military  genius 
or  personal  prowess  or  piety  of  Cromwell,  nor  of 
the  high-toned  morality  of  many  of  his  enioiirage^ 
nor  of  the  worthiness  of  the  ends  aimed  at  in 
much  of  his  foreign  and  domestic  policy.  But  the 
circumstances  which  brought  him  to  the  front, 
and  which  first  tempted  or  shut  him  up  to  the 
course  he  thenceforth  resolutely  pursued,  the  ex- 
pedients to  which  he  had  recourse  on  various 
occasions  when  he  could  not  attain  his  ends  by 
strictly  constitutional  means,  made  it  from  the 
first  all  but  impossible  that  he  should  be  honored 
"  to  bring  health  and  cure  "  to  the  distempered 
nations,  or  should  ever  come  to  trust  and  be 
trusted  by  the  great  majority,  who  had  been  seek- 
ing, through  all  these  commotions,  not  a  new  form 
of  government  or  a  new  ruling  dynasty,  but  the 
purification  and  continuance  of  the  old.^  Neither 
the  noble  qualities  and  aims  of  the  man,  nor  the 
brilliancy  of  his  military  successes,  nor  the  great- 

'  lie  had  no  appreciation  of  the  instinctive  horror,  with  which 
the  Enghsh  people  regarded  an  army  which  counted  its  impulses  as 
the  revelation  of  God,  ...  it  was  l)eyond  his  power  to  lay  broad 
the  foundations  of  the  peace  for  which  he  sighed. — Gardiner's  Civil 
War,  vol.  iii.  p.  518. 


of  the  Assembly.  463 

ness  of  his  influence  for  much  immediate  good  at 
home  and  abroad,  ought  to  be  allowed  to  blind  us 
to  the  falseness  of  the  position  in  which  he  put 
himself  toward  the  legitimate  aspirations  of  the 
nation,  nor  to  the  unworthy  trickeries^  and  cruel- 
ties to  which  at  times,  in  maintaining  his  position, 
he  condescended  to  have  recourse,  nor  to  the  sad 
consequences  to  Puritanism  at  home  and  to  Pro- 
testantism abroad  that  ultimately  came  of  his 
usurpation,  and  the  measures  by  which  its  success 
was  insured.  Much  of  the  hero-worship  latterly 
paid  at  his  shrine  has  been  the  glorification  of 
force ;  and,  if  ever  there  was  a  case  in   which  it 

^  Even  Neal  says  of  his  policy  toward  the  Cavahers,  the  Presby- 
terians, and  the  Republicans :  "  Cromwell  had  the  skill  not  only  to 
keep  them  divided,  but  to  increase  their  jealousies  of  each  other, 
and  by  that  means  to  disconcert  all  their  measures  against  himself." 
Vol.  iv.  p.  90.  See  also  Beattie's  History,  p.  261.  "  In  the  ascent 
of  this  bold  usurper  to  greatness,  he  had  successively  employed 
and  thrown  away  several  of  the  powerful  factions  who  distracted 
the  nation.  He  had  encouraged  the  I^evellers  and  persecuted 
them  ;  he  had  flattered  the  Long  Parliament  and  betrayed  it  ;  he 
had  made  use  of  tlie  Sectaries  to  crush  the  Commonwealth ;  he  had 
spurned  the  Sectaries  in  his  last  advance  to  power.  These,  with 
the  Royalists  and  the  Presbyterians,  forming  in  effect  the  whole 
people,  though  too  disunited  for  such  a  coalition  as  must  have  over- 
thrown him,  were  the  perpetual,  irreconcilable  enemies  of  his 
administration.  Master  of  his  army,  which  he  well  knew  how  to 
manage,  surrounded  by  a  few  deep  and  experienced  councilors, 
furnished  by  his  spies  with  the  completest  intelligence  of  all  designs 
against  him,  he  had  no  great  cause  of  alarm  from  open  resistance. 
But,  he  was  bound  by  the  instrument  of  government  to  call  a  Par- 
liament; and  in  any  Parliament  his  adversaries  must  be  formid- 
able."— Hallam's  Constitutional  History  of  England,  vol.  ii.  chap. 
X.  pt.  ii. 


464  Conclusion  and  Results 

might  be  truly  said  that  force  was  no  remedy,  it 
was  for  that  in  which  the  Parliament  and  the 
nation  found  themselves  in  1648.  He  did  not 
attempt  to  loose,  but  only  to  cut  the  knot,  over- 
powering, by  the  force  of  the  Army,  the  legiti- 
mate authorities  of  the  nation  when  the  prospect 
of  agreement  between  them  was  not  yet  aban- 
doned,— perhaps  had  begun  to  be  somewhat  more 
hopeful.  By  the  judicial  murder  of  the  king  he 
outraged  the  feelings  of  the  vast  majority  of  the 
people,  and  by  his  whole  policy  he  provoked  and 
intensified  that  reaction  which  came  to  a  head  so 
soon  after  his  death.  His  government  was  per- 
sonal government,  almost  as  undisguisedly  as  ever 
that  of  Charles  had  been,  and  it  was  more  un- 
blushingly  based  on  the  supremacy  of  the  Army 
as  "  a  providential  power,"  entitled  to  overrule  or 
supersede  every  other.  It  was  a  despotism  to  the 
core,  even  when  it  was  most  a  paternal  and  relig- 
ious one.  And  in  Scotland  as  well  as  in  Ireland, 
the  paternal  was  ever  the  vanishing  quantity,  and 
the  despotism  pure  and  simple  the  constant  one. 
He  could  confide  only  in  his  own  small  coterie ; 
his  power  of  influencing  individual  men,  even 
within  the  Puritan  circle,  was  but  limited ;  he  had 
no  such  gift  of  eloquence  or  electrical  force  as 
enabled  him  to  move  or  control  the  hostile  or 
indifferent  masses,  and  mould  them  to  his  will. 
He  was  never  content,  with  all  the  safeguards  he 


of  the  Assembly.  465 

devised,  to  be  simply  the  first  magistrate  in  a  free 
state.^  Even  the  ParHaments,  elected  under  the 
regulations  drafted  by  him  or  his  Council,  did  not 
prove  obsequious  to  his  will,  and  were  only  a  little 
less  respectfully  dismissed  than  the  Long  Parlia- 

^  He  wished,  no  doubt,  that  England  should  be  free  and  happy, 
but  he  wished  to  be  its  greatest  man,  if  not  its  sovereign.  He  had 
nothing  of  the  magnanimity  of  Washington  or  Wellington,  "  To 
the  last  he  was  a  slave  of  the  vulgar  lust  of  power  ;  and  to  this  he 
sacrificed  both  his  integrity  and  his  country,  his  conscience,  and 
his  peace.  Of  all  usurpers,  Cromwell  was  perhaps  the  best — the 
best  of  a  race  which  merits  the  indignation  of  mankind."  "  To 
govern  according  to  law  may  sometimes  be  an  usurper's  wish,  but 
can  seldom  be  in  his  power.  The  Protector  abandoned  all  thought 
of  it.  Dividing  the  kingdom  into  districts,  he  placed  at  the  head 
of  each  a  major-general  as  a  sort  of  military  magistrate  responsible 
for  the  subjection  of  his  prefecture.  These  were  eleven  in  number, 
men  bitterly  hostile  to  the  Royalist  party  and  to  all  civil  authority. 
They  were  employed  to  secure  the  payment  of  a  tax  of  ten  per 
cent.,  imposed  by  Cromwell's  arbitrary  will  on  those  who  had  ever 
sided  with  the  King  during  the  late  wars,  when  their  estates  ex- 
ceeded £\OQ  per  annum.  The  major-generals,  in  their  cor- 
respondence printed  among  Thurloe's  papers,  display  a  rapacity  and 
oppression  beyond  their  master's.  They  complain  that  the  number 
of  those  exempted  is  too  great ;  they  press  for  harsher  measures ; 
.  .  .  they  dwell  on  the  growth  of  malignancy  and  the  general 
disaffection.  It  was  not,  indeed,  likely  to  be  mitigated  by  this 
unparalleled  tyranny.  All  illusion  was  now  gone  as  to  the  pre- 
tended benefits  of  the  civil  war.  It  had  ended  in  a  despotism,  com- 
pared to  which  all  the  illegal  practices  of  former  kings,  all  that  had 
cost  Charles  his  life  and  Crown,  appeared  as  dust  in  the  balance. 
.  .  .  That  between  party  and  party  the  ordinary  civil  rights  of  men 
were  fairly  dealt  with  is  no  extraordinary  praise;  .  .  .  but  it  is 
manifest  that,  so  far  as  his  own  authority  was  concerned,  no 
hereditary  despot,  proud  in  the  crimes  of  a  hundred  ancestors, 
could  more  have  spurned  at  every  limit  than  this  soldier  of  a  com- 
monwealth."— Marsden's  Later  Puritans,  pp.  4CX)-403,  also,  Hal- 
lam's  History,  vol.  ii.  ch.  x.  pt.  ii. 
30 


466  Conchision  and  Results 

ment  had  been.  Whatever  he  may  have  tolerated 
in  rehgion,  he  did  not  tolerate  freedom  of  church 
government  in  England/  still  less  in  Scotland. 
Notwithstanding  all  his  advances,  that  country 
continued  in  a  state  of  sullen  discontent,  if  not  of 
veiled  rebellion.  Not  only  was  the  General  As- 
sembly dismissed  in  1653,  and  prevented  from 
meeting  in  1654,  but  the  synods  and  inferior 
courts  at  times  were  vexatiously  interfered  with, 
and  dispersed ;  and  the  decisions  of  presbyteries 
in  the  settlement  of  ministers,  even  when  based 
on  the  call  of  the  people,  were  often  overruled.  I 
have  recently  had  occasion  to  examine  the  records 
of  the  Synod  of  Perth  and  Stirling  during  the 
period,  which  show  a  state  of  repression  in  that 
central  province  more  systematic  than  previous 
researches    had    prepared    me    to    expect.^      It 

1  The  church  there  was  rather,  as  one  has  said,  a  mere  institute 
for  preaching  and  expounding  the  Word  of  God,  than  for  the  ad- 
ministration of  seaHng  ordinances  or  the  exercise  of  ecclesiastical 
discipline.  Hence  the  number  of  children  which  grew  up 
unbaptized,  and  the  need  for  a  form  of  adult  baptism,  at  the 
Restoration. 

-  In  October  165 1,  there  was  no  meeting  of  synod — "  the  Eng- 
lish army  having  overspread  the  land,  and  garrisons  being  planted 
both  in  Perth  and  Stirling,  and  no  safety  for  traveling,  nor  liberty 
for  the  brethren  to  convene."  The  following  year,  the  synod  met 
at  Dunning,  but  were  kept  out  of  the  church  by  a  popular  tumult, 
apparently  encouraged  by  those  who  favored  the  English  faction. 
In  October  1653,  the  Synod  met  at  Dunblane,  and,  "considering 
the  poverty  of  the  number,  and  also  the  want  of  freedom,  being 
interrupted  by  the  soldiers  of  Captain  Robertson's  command,"  then 
lying  at  Dunblane,  they  unanimously  adjourned  the  synod  till  the 


of  the  Assembly.  467 

was  the  temporary  success  of  his  repressive 
policy,  I  beHeve,  which  emboldened  Clarendon  in 
England,  and  Sharp  in  Scotland,  to  pursue  their 

following  spring,  protesting  on  the  interruption  of  the  soldiers, 
that  this  interruption  should  be  no  prejudice  to  their  liberty  to  meet 
again,  according  to  the  power  given  them  by  Jesus  Christ,  to 
assemble  as  well  as  to  preach,  in  regard  the  Word  of  God,  the 
Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  the  Acts  of  the  General  Assembly, 
and  the  laws  of  the  land  all  allowed  it,"  They  did  not  meet  again 
till  October  1654,  and,  expecting  to  be  again  interrupted,  before 
taking  up  any  other  business,  they  made  arrangements  for  their 
next  meeting,  as  well  as  for  the  change  of  the  time  and  place  for  it, 
if  these  should  prove  unsuitable  or  unsafe.  They  met  again  in  April 
1655,  and,  hearing  that  a  party  of  soldiers  was  coming  to  interrupt 
their  meeting,  they  improved  on  the  innovation  of  the  preceding 
year,  and  resolved  not  only  to  fix  time  and  place  for  their  meeting, 
but  to  transact  their  business  before  the  usual  sermon,  and  the 
arrival  of  the  soldiers,  who  apparently  had  been  timed  not  to  arrive 
till  after  the  sermon.  That  was  not  interrupted  by  them,  but, 
immediately  after,  an  English  officer  commanded  the  Assembly  to 
dissolve,  and  being  asked  to  show  his  warrant  for  what  he  did, 
he  refused,  and  threatened,  and  actually  did  use,  violence  ;  where- 
upon the  moderator,  after  the  usual  solemn  protest,  dissolved  the 
meeting.  See  also  Beattie,  pp.  232-236.  The  meeting  of  the 
Synod  of  Fife  was  also  interfered  with  on  one  occasion,  and  in  a 
paper  subscribed  by  Rutherfurd  and  other  leading  Protestors  in 
1653  they  said,  "  Our  souls  are  also  grieved  with  the  encroach- 
ments, that  are  made  by  the  civil  power  upon  the  privileges  of  the 
church,  in  the  power  of  her  courts  and  judicatories  in  the  admit- 
ting and  removing  of  ministers ;  and  by  their  disposing  upon  their 
maintenance  and  stipends  at  pleasure ;  these  church  privileges 
being  not  only  allowed  and  confirmed  by  the  laws  of  the  land,  but 
founded  on  and  consonant  to  the  Word  of  God."  .  ,  .  They 
further  complain  that  '•  these  powers  had  given  express  inhibition 
to  the  colleges  and  universities  of  this  land  anent  the  taking  of  the 
Covenant  ...  a  demonstration  clear  enough,  that  it  is  intended 
that  it  should  be  no  more  had  in  ixmembrance." — Blair's  Auto- 
biography and  Life,  p.  305,  note.  See  also  Bailie's  Letters  of 
1654. 


468  Conctusion  and  Results 

far  more  rigorous  and  cruel  courses.  After  the 
death  of  Cromwell,  the  motley  fabric  he  had 
reared  fell  of  its  own  accord.  His  son  Richard 
abdicated  the  office  of  Protector,  as  soon  as  he 
found  he  could  not  count  on  the  support  of  those 
who  had  followed  the  fortunes  of  his  father.  The 
officers  of  the  army  would  have  liked  to  retain 
the  supreme  control  of  affairs  in  their  own  hands, 
but,  uncertain  of  the  attitude  of  Monk,  and  the 
Scottish  division  of  the  Army  toward  themselves, 
or  to  the  exiled  prince,  they  consented  to  recall 
the  *'  Rump"  of  the  Long  Parliament,  which,  in 
1653,  Cromwell  had  contemptuously  dismissed  ; 
and  it  continued  to  direct  the  government  of  the 
kingdom  for  a  time.  After  Monk  came  with  his 
forces  to  London,  and  was  welcomed  by  its  citi- 
zens, the  "  excluded  members  "  were  encouraged 
again  to  take  their  seats,  and  so  the  last  legally 
elected  Parliament  (whose  rights,  Bradshaw  had 
told  Cromwell,  were  not  invalidated  by  his  act  of 
dismissal)  was  peacefully  reinstated  at  Westmin- 
ster. Without  delay  it  fell  back  on  its  old  tradi- 
tions ;  restored  the  Solemn  League  aud  Covenant 
to  its  place  of  honor  in  the  House,  and  in  the 
churches;  reapproved  without  qualification  of  all 
the  chapters  of  the  Confession  of  Faith,  save  Chap- 
ters XXX.  and  xxxi.,  and  recognized  the  Presbyte- 
rian government  of  the  Church,  but  with  a  tolera- 
tion  for  tender   consciences.     And  these,   rather 


of  the  Assembly.  469 

than  the  older  arrangements  of  1648,  are  those  by 
which  the  spirit  of  English  Presbyterianism  ought 
in  fairness  to  be  judged.  Having  provided  for  the 
assembling  of  a  Parliament  more  truly  representa- 
tive of  the  nation,  and  more  in  the  old  form,  this 
memorable  House  of  Commons  then  agreed  to  its 
own  dissolution.  The  new  House  of  Commons 
was  elected  by  a  wider  constituency  than  Crom- 
well had  ever  ventured  to  intrust  with  such  a 
power,  and  a  number  of  old  Cavaliers  found 
places  among  its  members.  They  were  not  so 
powerful  in  it,  however,  as  they  were  soon  to  be- 
come, and,  in  all  probability,  it  would  have  listened 
with  favor  to  the  proposal  of  Sir  Matthew  Hale, 
that,  before  his  restoration,  conditions  should  be 
arranged  with  the  King  for  securing  the  liberties 
of  the  nation  and  the  reformation  of  the  Church. 
But  those  in  the  more  immediate  confidence  of 
Monk,  as  well  as  Hyde  and  others  about  the 
King,  dreaded  such  a  movement,  and  did  their 
utmost  to  hurry  on  the  Restoration  while  the 
favorable  impression  produced  by  the  Royal  De- 
claration for  "  toleration  to  tender  consciences," 
issued  from  Breda,  was  still  at  its  height.  Thus, 
in  the  exuberance  of  an  unsuspecting  loyalty,  all 
was  confided  to  the  honor  of  the  King,  and  on  the 
29tli  of  May  he  was  welcomed  to  London  with 
unbounded  enthusiasm  and  joy.  There  is  per- 
haps no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  king  himself 


470  Concltision  and  RestUts 

meant  deliberately  to  amuse  or  mislead  those  who 
had  so  implicitly  confided  in  him.  Indeed  the 
Declaration  he  issued  in  October  1660,  and  the 
offers  of  promotion  in  the  church  he  made  to  lead- 
ing Puritans  seem  to  show  the  contrary,  and  that 
he  would  have  been  gratified  to  be  the  means  of 
restoring  a  better  understanding  between  the  old 
Cavaliers  and  the  moderate  Puritans  who  had 
united  in  doing  him  so  signal  a  service.  But  he 
was  not  thoroughly  in  earnest  in  the  cause.  It 
was  indolent  good-nature,  more  than  any  deeper 
principle  which  actuated  him,  and  so  he  was  not 
resolute  in  his  course.  While  he  had  not  gone 
quite  far  enough  in  his  Declaration  to  satisfy  Bax- 
ter, and  some  of  his  more  scrupulous  brethren,  he 
had  gone  too  far  to  please  the  old  bishops,  and 
they  left  no  stone  unturned  to  avert  the  threatened 
mischief.  "  They  worked  upon  Clarendon,  they 
rallied  the  courtiers  as  one  man  round  the  banner 
of  the  High  Church,  they  spirited  away  Sir  Mat- 
thew Hale  from  the  Lower  House  by  having  him 
appointed  Chief  Baron  of  the  Exchequer.  At 
length  their  efforts  were  crowned  with  success."  ^ 
On  the  28th  of  November  1660,  they  saw  his 
Declaration^  rejected  in  the  House  of  Commons 
by  a  majority  of  26.     With   this  may  be  said  to 


^  Bayne's  English  Puritanism,  p.  122. 

^  His  Majesty'' s  Declaration  to  all  his  loving  subjects  of  Eng- 
land and  Wales  concerning  Ecclesiastical  Affairs,'''  London  1660. 


of  the  Assembly.  47 1 

have  perished  all  prospect  of  such  a  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  Church  as  would  have  satisfied  the 
reasonable  desires  and  cherished  hopes  of  the 
more  moderate  Nonconformists,  and  with  that 
almost  all  prospect  of  any  large  or  liberal  tole- 
ration to  them  outside.  It  was  now  unmistak- 
ably clear  that  whatever  may  have  been  the  per- 
sonal wishes  of  the  king,  and  one  or  two  of 
the  noblemen  in  immediate  attendance  on  him, 
his  chief  advisers,  lay  as  well  as  clerical,  were  not 
in  favor  of  any  real  or  generous  compromise. 
The  Savoy  Conference  could  hardly  in  such  cir- 
cumstances have  been  other  than  a  failure,  though 
every  effort  was  made  to  load  the  Presbyterians 
with  the  odium  of  the  failure.  Their  recent  ser- 
vices to  the  royal  cause,  it  was  now  evident,  had 
not  obliterated  from  the  minds  of  their  embittered 
opponents  the  remembrance  of  the  more  ancient 
feud.  Now  that  they  thought  they  had  them 
in  their  power,  and  a  majority  of  the  House  of 
Commons  at  their  back,  they  were  determined  to 
make  their  position  as  uncomfortable  as  they 
could.  No  real  ground  had  been  given  for  this. 
There  was  no  inconsistency  in  contending,  as  these 
had  done  through  all  the  preceding  troubles,  for 
a  certain  amount  of  liberty  in  the  state,  and  of 
reformation  in  the  Church,  and  yet  standing  by 
the  ancient  constitution  and  royal  family.  The 
attempt  to  misrepresent  them,  and   excite  preju- 


472  Conclusion  and  Results 

dice  against  them,  and  to  revive  the  old  doctrine 
of  passive  obedience,  and  the  divine  right  of  kings, 
was  unworthy  of  those  who  prostituted  their 
sacred  office  to  assert  it,  and  to  prepare  a  fresh 
harvest  of  calamity  for  the  nation.  The  issue  of 
such  a  course  could  only  be  a  great  schism  and  a 
new  struggle,  which  only  truly  Christian  men 
could  have  continued  to  maintain  so  resolutely 
with  no  arms  but  those  of  prayer  and  patience. 
"At  length  the  storm  burst."  The  work  of  the 
Savoy  Conference  was  transferred  to  the  revived 
Convocation,  and  after  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  had  been  revised  by  them,  and  many  minor 
alterations  made  (but  few  making  it  more  accep- 
table to  the  Puritans^),  it  was  transmitted  to  the 
king,  and  the  Bill  to  compel  uniformity  was  re- 
introduced into  Parliament.  The  history  of  its 
progress  there,  of  the  changes  made  in  its  pro- 
gress— tending  to  increase  its  harshness — and  of 
the  narrow  majorities  by  which  at  last  it  was 
passed,  has  been  often  told,  and  recently  it  has 
been  re-told  with  greater  minuteness  and  accuracy 
by  Canon  Swainson.  On  the  14th  January,  it  was 
read  a  first  time  in  the  House  of  Commons ;  on 
the  8th  of  May,  it  finally  passed  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  on  the  1 8th  it  received  the  royal  as- 
sent.    "  The  fate  of  the  Puritans  was  thus  sealed. 

'  Even  the  "ridiculous  story"  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  struck 
out  of  the  table  of  lessons  after  the  Hampton  Court  Conference, 
was  now  restored. 


of  the  Assembly,  473 

The  contest  of  a  hundred  years  was  at  an  end," 
and  by  St.  Bartholomew's  Day,  24th  August  1662 
(fixed  by  the  Act),  it  is  said  that  full  two  thousand 
of  them  had  surrendered  their  benefices  and  left 
the  Church.  Their  sorrows  and  sufferings  were 
great  and  long-continued,  but  these  at  last  came 
to  an  end.  The  consequences  to  the  Church  her- 
self, immediate  and  more  remote,  as  many  of  her 
truest  friends  have  confessed,  were  more  lasting, 
and  even  more  deplorable. 

Mr.  Marsden,  their  most  generous  critic  in  re- 
cent times,  in  one  of  the  most  eloquent  passages 
in  his  second  volume/  calls  in  question  the  wis- 
dom and  expediency  of  the  course  they  followed 
in  refusing  to  accept  the  promotion  offered  them, 
and  to  take  their  place  at  once  in  the  restored 
Church.  "  They  acted,"  he  says,  "  with  integrity, 
but  they  were  not  wise.  .  .  .  There  seems  to  have 
been  now,  as  there  always  was,  a  want  of  concert 
and  of  practical  good  sense  amongst  the  Puritan 
leaders.  .  .  .  There  are  times  when  good  men  are 
imperiously  called  upon  to  accept  preferment  at 
the  expense  of  reputation.  Vulgar  minds  will 
find  it  impossible  to  respect  or  even  to  understand 
their  motives.  The  race  of  ambition  is  a  passion 
so  universal,  that  the  few  who  pursue  it  from  dis- 
interested motives  are  never  appreciated.  Yet 
Christian  heroism  calls,  though  rarely  it  must  be 

^  Later  Puritans,  pp.  427,  428,  and  other  writers  quoted  there. 


474  Conclusion  and  Results 

allowed,  for  this  species  of  self-immolation,  and 
men,  for  their  heavenly  Master's  sake,  must  even 
be  content  sometimes  to  have  greatness  thrust 
upon  them.  To  accept  the  preferments  was  at 
least  to  gain  more  influence  with  the  Court ;  to 
reject  them  was  to  abandon  the  little  they  pos- 
sessed. They  ought  to  have  renounced  the  Cov- 
enant, they  ought  to  have  unsaid  the  former 
extravagancies  of  themselves  or  of  their  party : 
this  indeed  they  did  in  private ;  and  they  should 
not  have  shrunk  from  doing  it  publicly  and  before 
the  people.  Nor  had  they  in  truth  much  cause 
for  shame.  Which  of  their  opponents  had  not 
something  to  retract?  Which  of  them,  for  in- 
stance, now  ventured  to  maintain  (whatever  they 
might  secretly  wish)  the  canons  of  1640  and  the 
practices  of  Laud  ?  .  .  .  Had  they  accepted  pre- 
ferment it  seems  impossible  that  the  calamities 
should  have  occurred  which  now  immediately 
ensued.  Could  the  Act  of  Uniformity  have  passed 
with  Richard  Baxter  in  the  House  of  Lords? 
Would  the  most  violent  High  Churchman  have 
ventured  to  recommend  the  king  to  put  his  hand 
to  a  bill  which  must  instantly  create  a  new  secession 
and  place  at  its  head  a  band  of  Nonconforming 
Bishops  ?  .  .  .  They  did  not  perceive  the  import- 
ance of  the  crisis,  and  that  this  was  their  last  op- 
portunity. .  .  .  Their  motives  were  pure,  but  their 
decision  was  unfortunate." 


of  the  Assembly.  475 

It  may  be  granted  to  Mr.  Marsdcn  that  there 
are  times  when  such  self-immolation  as  he 
describes  may  be  Christian  men's  duty,  but  on  the 
other  hand  it  must  be  asserted  that  there  are  also 
times  when  the  only  effect  of  it  would  be  to  blot 
a  good  name,  to  mar  the  effect  of  a  lifetime's 
labors,  and  to  grieve  the  hearts  of  the  godly  who 
must  be  parted  from,  without  securing  the  confi- 
dence or  gaining  the  kindly  sympathies  of  those 
with  whom  they  must  associate  themselves. 
There  are  times  when  all  that  is  noblest  and  best 
in  a  man  will  rise  in  revolt  against  the  thought 
of  leaving  those  with  whom  he  has  been  wont  to 
take  sweet  counsel  in  matters  of  holiest  concern, 
and  going  over  to  those  who,  he  feels,  do  not  un- 
derstand him,  cannot  sympathize  with  him  and 
will  not  heartily  co-operate  with  him,  but  will  do 
all  they  can  to  thwart  him  and  make  his  new 
position  irksome.  And  if  ever  there  was  a  time 
when  the  spiritual  instinct  might  be  called  in  to 
aid  in  turning  one  way  or  another  the  balance  of 
the  judgment,  it  was  surely  at  such  a  crisis  as  had 
then  arisen.  Would  the  adhesion  of  even  a  large 
proportion  of  the  Puritan  ministers  to  the  national 
Church  have  sufficed  to  abash  vice  in  high  places, 
or  to  arrest  the  excess  of  riot  by  which  the 
Cavaliers  of  that  generation  were  determined  to 
signalize  their  emancipation  from  former  restraints, 
or  to  secure  even  the  most  necessary  reforms  in 


476  Conclusion  and  Results 

the  discipline  and  internal  administration  of  the 
old  Church  ?  Would  it  not  have  been  a  life-long 
martyrdom,  far  more  painful  than  that  they  were 
called  to  bear,  to  be  cut  off  from  those  whose 
sympathy  had  cheered,  whose  counsel  had  guided, 
whose  holy  example  had  encouraged  them  in  all 
good,  and  to  be  associated  and  identified  with  men 
who  hated  their  strictness,  set  no  value  on  their 
peculiar  excellencies,  and  did  not  feel  their  need  of 
them,  or  really  care  to  retain  them  ?  Could  they 
have  hoped  to  find  themselves  in  better  case  than 
did  the  sainted  Leighton  in  Scotland,  who  was 
misjudged  by  those  he  left,  mistrusted  by  those 
he  joined,  and  at  last  constrained  to  abandon  in 
disgust  the  work  for  the  sake  of  which  he  had 
consented  to  make  this  sad  self-immolation  ?  But 
acting  as  they  did,  resolving  to  forego  even  high 
preferment  rather  than  risk  being  compromised, 
these  noble  confessors  at  least  preserved  their  own 
peace  of  conscience  and  the  esteem  and  sympathy 
of  those  whose  esteem  and  sympathy  they  truly 
valued,  commanded  the  respect  of  the  best  of 
their  opponents,  and  bore  a  testimony  to  the  real- 
ity of  religious  principle  which  told  even  on  that 
backsliding  generation,  and  has  secured  them  honor 
and  influence  for  all  future  time. 

Besides,  a  similar  course  to  that  which  Marsden 
recommends  may  be  said  to  have  been  followed 
in  Scotland,  both  under  the  first  and  the  second 


of  the  Assembly,  477 

Protestant  episcopacies,  as  it  had  also  been  in 
England  on  the  accession  of  Elizabeth ;  ^  and 
under  both  it  is  admitted  to  have  been  a  si^inal 
failure.  What  the  leaders  of  English  Puritanism 
shrunk  from  doing  at  the  Restoration  several  of 
the  leaders  of  Scottish  Puritanism  ventured  to  do 
both  in  1606  and  in  1 661,  as  Nicolson,  Cowper, 
and  Forbes  at  the  former  date,  and  Sharp,  Leigh- 
ton,  Halyburton,  and  Honeyman  at  the  latter. 
But  they  did  not  thereby  succeed  in  repairing  the 
breaches  that  had  been  made  in  the  walls  of  Zion, 
nor  in  working  out  any  great  deliverance  in  the 
land.  The  results  of  their  compliance  were  mor- 
tifying to  themselves  and  disappointing  to  others, 
and  ended  in  a  policy  so  oppressive  and  unchris- 
tian that  Archbishop  Leighton  declared  "  that  he 
would  not  concur  in  planting  the  Christian  reli- 
gion itself  in  such  a  manner,  much  less  a  form  of 
church-government." 

The  fate  of  the  Scottish  Presbyterians  was  still 
more  tragic  than  that  of  the  English.  Thrown 
off  their  guard  by  an  ambiguous  letter  of  the 
king,  and  by  the  representations  of  their  envoy, 
in  whom  they  placed  too  implicit  confidence,  they 
took  no  active  measures  to  secure  the  dearly-won 
liberties  of  their  Church  till  it  was  too  late  to  do 
so.  The  P>nglish  advisers  of  the  king  had  made 
up  their  minds,  in  furtherance  of  what  they 
^  See  pp.  40,  42, 


47 S  Conclusion  and  Results 

deemed  English  interests,  to  defy  Scottish  'opin- 
ion, and  far  outdo  the  repressive  poHcy  of  Crom- 
well. That  Church  which  was  dear  to  the  Scottish 
people,  and  had,  notwithstanding  many  shortcom- 
ings, proved  itself  worthy  of  their  love,  which 
had  never  swerved  in  its  loyalty  to  the  sovereign, 
and  had  suffered  much  at  the  hands  of  the  sec- 
taries for  its  steadfastness  in  his  cause,  was  not 
only  cramped  and  repressed,  but  in  a  drunken  fit 
deprived  by  the  Parliament  of  the  legal  securities 
which  his  father  had  ratified,  and  the  king  him- 
self had  sworn  to.  The  rights  of  the  younger 
portion  of  the  ministers  to  their  benefices  were 
put  in  jeopardy,  and  on  their  declining  to  make 
the  compliances  demanded  of  them,  they  were 
ordered  by  an  Act  of  Council  to  leave  by  a  cer- 
tain day.  A  large  number  of  them  did  so,  and 
by  that  Act,  and  other  repressive  measures,  it  is 
said  that  nearly  four  hundred  were  outed  or  de- 
prived. How  far  Sharp,  in  whom  they  reposed 
so  unlimited  confidence,  was  the  dupe  of  Monk 
and  Sheldon,  and  how  far  he  was  the  willing  ally 
of  the  one  in  bringing  back  the  king  without 
conditions,  and  of  the  other  in  the  insane  attempt 
to  wreathe  the  yoke  of  a  new  episcopacy  round 
the  neck  of  the  Scottish  nation,  can  hardly  now 
be  ascertained.  But  the  result  was  as  fatal  to  his 
country  and  himself  as  if  it  had  been  deliberately 
planned,  and  English  statesmen  and  their  Scottish 


of  the  Assembly.  479 

dupes  or  tools  had  determined  to  make  Scotland 
a  second  Ireland.  That  which  Henderson  and 
their  other  leaders  feared  in  1643  had  now  come 
on  them,  when  they  were  exhausted  by  their  pre- 
vious weary  struggle  and  less  able  effectually  to 
oppose  it.  But  they  were  to  prove,  by  their 
heroic  endurance  of  oppression  and  cruelty 
almost  unparalleled,  the  constancy  of  their  at- 
tachment to  their  beloved  Presbytery,  and  to  win 
back  by  these  means  what  they  had  previously 
thought  could  be  gained  and  retained  only  by 
force  of  arms. 

The  withdrawal  of  so  many  able,  zealous,  and 
experienced  ministers  (about  2000  in  England 
and  400  in  Scotland)  was  unquestionably  a  sad 
loss  to  the  national  Churches,  and  the  long  period 
of  deadness  that  followed,  the  mad  outbreak  of 
vice,  profanity,  and  religious  indifference  which 
for  a  time  seemed  to  bear  down  all  that  was  self- 
restrained  and  earnestly  Christian,  was  perhaps 
its  saddest  consequence,  sadder  far  than  any  that 
came  to  the  sufferers  themselves  from  the  con- 
tempt and  hatred  and  cruel  oppression  they  had 
to  endure.  But  the  ejection  of  these  confessors 
had  other  consequences  which  it  would  be  wrong 
to  overlook.  It  was  overruled  for  good  by  Him 
who  orders  all  things  wisely  and  well,  and  was 
the  means  of  working  out  results  which,  humanly 
speaking,  could  not  otherwise  have  been  gained. 


480  Co7iclusion  and  Results 

First,  Their  conduct  bore  striking  testimony  to 
the  reality  of  religious  principle.  As  I  have  just 
stated,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  conformity 
of  these  men,  and  the  continuance  of  the  whole  of 
them  in  the  national  Churches,  would  have  arrested 
the  sad  course  of  events,  and  saved  the  nation  then 
so  resolutely  bent  on  breaking  loose  from  all 
restraint.  But  it  might  have  shut  their  own 
mouths  or  weakened  the  force  of  the  testimony 
which  in  more  fortunate  times  they  had  borne 
for  God  and  godliness,  and  would  have  had  still 
to  bear  before  men  who  were  resolved  to  own  them 
only  as  either  knaves  or  fools.  Their  conformity 
in  the  circumstances,  it  seems  to  me,  would  have 
done  more  than  anything  else  to  justify  the 
opinion  that,  after  all  their  professions,  they  were 
but  hypocrites  or  fair-weather  Christians,  who, 
whatever  they  might  say  for  religion,  were  as 
reluctant  as  their  neighbors  to  make  any  real 
sacrifice  for  it.  But  when  their  leaders,  rather  than 
prove  unfaithful  to  the  convictions  which  in  more 
fortunate  times  they  had  avowed,  chose  to  forego 
the  ease  and  independence  which  were  within  their 
reach,  and  to  refuse  the  dignities  which  were 
offered  them,  and  when  so  large  a  number  of  their 
followers  joined  them  in  surrendering  their  prefer- 
ments and  exposing  themselves  to  certain  privation, 
and  to  almost  as  certain  persecution,  and  when, 
notwithstanding  all  they  had  to  suffer,  they  per- 


of  the  Assembly.  48 1 

severed  in  their  course,  whatever  men  may  say  of 
them,  they  dare  not  for  very  shame  say  that  they 
were  not  in  sober  earnest  about  rehgion  and  the 
scriptural  organization  of  the  Church,  and  even 
under  obloquy  and  apparent  defeat  were  achiev- 
ing for  their  Master  and  themselves  a  glorious 
moral  victory.  A  distinguished  member  of  a  later 
secession  has  illustrated  the  grandeur  of  the  Puri- 
tan one  by  a  comparison  it  would  have  been  in- 
vidious in  me  to  suggest,  but  I  may  venture  to 
repeat  his  words :  "  They  went  forth  each  man 
alone.  They  had  no  free  press  to  plead  their 
cause ;  they  had  no  free  country  in  which  to 
organize  and  carry  on  their  church ;  they  had  no 
Chalmers  to  be  the  Moses  of  their  exodus ;  they 
went  forth  as  Abraham  did,  not  knowing  where 
they  should  obtain  their  next  meal,  or  where  they 
should  sleep  the  next  night — casting  themselves 
and  their  little  ones  on  the  providence  of  God." 
And  I  may  venture  to  add  that,  if  ever  the  words 
of  the  Apostle  might  be  truly  applied  to  any  of  his 
successors,  they  might  be  so  to  them  :  "  Being  re- 
viled, we  bless ;  being  persecuted,  we  suffer  it : 
being  defamed,  we  entreat."  The  diaries  of  Philip 
Henry,  recently  published,  furnish  many  noble 
and  touching  illustrations  of  this  abounding  in 
charity  and  good  will. 

Second,  It  secured  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the 
cause  of  civil  liberty  and  religious  toleration.    Had 

31 


482  Conclusion  and  Results 

all  that  they  ventured  to  ask  at  the  Restoration  been 
frankly  conceded  to  them,  the  loss  to  Britain  and 
to  Anglo-Saxon  Christendom  might  have  been  far 
greater  than  the  gain.  Some  of  the  worst  excesses 
of  the  later  Stuarts  might  have  been  escaped. 
The  crown  might  have  been  a  little  more  chary  in 
exceeding  its  prerogatives  and  abusing  its  in- 
fluence, but  its  province  would  not  have  been  so 
distinctly  marked  out,  so  carefully  limited,  or  so 
faithfully  kept  as  it  has  been  under  that  happier 
Revolution  Settlement,  which  was  the  real  outcome 
of  the  influence  of  moderate  Puritanism  in  its 
application  to  the  State.  The  Church  might  have 
been  somewhat  more  comprehensive,  somewhat 
more  tolerant  of  the  friends  of  evangelical  truth 
within  her  pale  than  for  long  she  was,  but  she 
would  not  have  been  a  whit  more  tolerant  of  those 
who  were  beyond  her  pale.  In  fact,  from  their 
smaller  numbers  and  less  influential  position,  the 
final  triumph  of  the  principle  of  toleration  might 
have  been  long  deferred.  As  I  have  said  already, 
that  was  a  noble  principle  which  the  Assembly 
had  enshrined  in  its  Confession,  and  while  it  shall 
continue  to  survive  Puritanism  will  not  need  to 
hide  its  diminished  head  before  any  of  the  other 
Isms  of  the  day :  "  God  alone  is  Lord  of  the 
conscience,  and  hath  left  it  free  from  the  doctrines 
and  commandments  of  men  which  are  in  anything 
contrary  to  His  word,  or  beside  it  in  matters  of  faith 


of  the  Assembly,  483 

or  worship.  So  that  to  believe  such  doctrines,  or 
to  obey  such  commands  out  of  conscience,  is  to 
betray  true  Hberty  of  conscience,  and  the  requiring 
of  an  implicit  faith,  and  an  absolute  blind  obedi- 
ence, is  to  destroy  liberty  of  conscience  and  reason 
also."  If  in  the  day  of  their  prosperity  they  had 
affirmed  this  principle,  a  large  number  of  them 
had  failed  consistently  and  lovingly  to  carry  it  out 
in  practice.  God  suffered  them  to  be  cast  into  a 
furnace  seven  times  heated,  that  they  might  learn 
in  adversity  the  lesson  they  had  not  thoroughly 
mastered  in  prosperity,  and  from  bitter  experience 
be  led  to  realize  the  full  value  and  extent  of  the 
principle  enshrined  in  their  own  Confession. 

Third,  It  has  kept  open  for  settlement  in  more 
fortunate  times  the  questions  which  were  then  not 
ripe  for  settlement.  Had  these  men  conformed, 
having  all  conceded  which  they  had  ventured  to 
ask,  the  constitution  of  the  national  Churches 
would  have  been  but  slightly  modified,  the  cause 
of  more  free  and  simple  worship,  of  a  reasonably 
independent  church  action  and  government,  and 
of  a  more  pure  and  vigorous  church  discipline, 
would  have  been  but  little  advanced.  But  by  their 
ejection  and  continuance  in  separation,  a  testi- 
mony was  kept  up  for  the  truths  for  which  they 
and  their  fathers  had  witnessed,  and  by  the 
experiences  through  which  their  descendants  have 
since   passed    they    have    been    enabled    to    give 


484  Co7iclusion  a7td  Restdts 

practical  proof  of  the  vitality  of  the  principles  for 
which  their  fathers  contended,  and  to  provide  a 
contribution  of  no  mean  value  for  the  happier 
times  when  English-speaking  Christians  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  shall  be  inclined  to  forget 
the  sad  past  and  to  labor  together  in  rearing 
to  their  common  Father  and  Redeemer  a  nobler 
temple  than  we  have  yet  seen,  and  when  perhaps 
even  the  bright  vision  of  a  united  Protestantism, 
such  as  Cranmer  and  Calvin  longed  for,  and 
Ussher,  Leighton,  Henderson,  Howe,  and  Baxter 
labored  for,  may  be  realized. 

These  lectures  on  the  Westminster  Assembly, 
and  the  Westminster  Standards,  must  now  be 
brought  to  a  close.  I  am  sure  that,  after  the  length 
to  which  this  one  has  already  extended,  you  will 
excuse  me  from  attempting  to  enter  more  fully 
into  certain  debatable  questions  which  I  have 
been  able  to  touch  on  only  in  the  most  incidental 
manner.  I  should  like  to  say  something  more  on 
the  question  whether  England  was  in  any  sense 
ripe  for  Presbytery  in  the  middle  of  the  17th  cen- 
tury, and  whether  our  countrymen,  by  their  over- 
keenness  in  pressing  it,  did  not  cast  away  a  good 
chance  of  a  more  moderate,  but  more  stable  settle- 
ment, such  as  Ussher  had  proposed,  under  which 
the  old  Church  of  England  might  have  proved  to 
be  one  of  the  fairest  daughters  of  the  Reformation 
and  remained  in  loving  sympathy  and  hearty  fel- 


of  the  Assembly.  485 

lowship  with  the  sister  Churches  at  home  and 
£ibroad.  I  must  be  content,  however,  to  pass  over 
such  inviting  topics,  and  to  confine  myself  in  a  few 
closing  sentences  to  one  point  only.  It  is  said 
that  the  Westminster  Assembly  was,  after  all,  a 
failure,  and  that  its  standards,  ere  many  years  had 
passed,  were  cast  aside  in  the  land  which  gave 
them  birth.  Indeed  it  was  so,  and  so  was  much 
of  the  regard  for  God  and  things  divine.  Many, 
set  free  from  the  restraint  under  which  they  had 
for  a  time  been  kept,  surrendered  themselves  up  to 
every  excess  of  riot.  The  very  king,  for  whose 
sake  so  much  had  been  dared  and  suffered  by 
loyal  Presbyterians,  heartlessly  forgot  the  promises 
he  had  given,  and  abandoned  them  to  the  mercy 
of  their  old  antagonists.  The  court  he  gathered 
round  him  was  the  most  dissolute  which  England 
for  centuries  had  seen,  and  many,  of  whom  better 
things  might  have  been  expected,  contended  but 
feebly  against  iniquity  in  high  places.  Many  of 
whom  the  age  was  not  worthy  surrendered  their 
livings  rather  than  submit  to  the  new  Act  of  Uni- 
formity, and  went  forth  from  the  Church  they  loved 
and  wished  to  serve,  to  prove,  under  contempt  and 
persecution,  the  reality  of  the  Christian  principles 
they  had  professed  in  the  day  of  their  prosperity 
and  their  deep  attachment  to  the  constitution 
of  their  native  land.  But  though  their  doctrinal 
standards  were  haughtily  ignored  and  themselves 


486  Conclusion  and  Results 

ejected  from  the  reconstituted  Church,  their  the- 
ology Hved  on  all  the  same.  It  lived  on  in  the 
Episcopal  Churches  of  England  and  Scotland  in 
the  teaching  of  Reynolds,  Conant,  Wallis,  Hop- 
kins, and  Leighton,  and  several  other  like-minded 
men,  who  strove  to  be  faithful  to  God  in  the 
midst  of  abounding  defection.  It  lived  on,  too,  in 
the  teaching  of  those  who  went  forth  as  outcasts 
from  society  and  the  Churches  of  their  native  land, 
preached  it  by  their  meek  and  holy  lives  when  no 
longer  allowed  to  preach  it  by  their  lips,  and  out 
of  their  deep  poverty  and  sore  tribulation  enriched 
after  generations  and  stored  the  treasures  of  their 
experience  and  teaching  in  those  precious  practical 
treatises  which  will  live  while  the  English  language 
continues  to  be  spoken,  and  the  faith  of  St.  Paul, 
Augustine,  Ussher,  and  Leighton  to  be  valued,  by 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  Even  in  that  time  of 
lowest  depression,  emphatic  testimony  was  borne 
to  it  by  John  Bunyan  and  his  Baptist  brethren, 
when,  in  1677,  they  substantially  adopted  the 
Confession  of  the  Westminster  Assembly,  as  the 
Independents  had  previously  done.  In  his  thrill- 
ing sermons  and  inimitable  allegories  he  secured 
for  it  as  wide  and  loving  acceptance  among  the 
humble  and  unlettered  as  the  masterly  discussions 
and  defenses  of  its  more  learned  advocates  had 
secured  for  it  among  many  of  the  educated  and 
thoughtful.     It   is    said    to    have    been   from    the 


of  the  Assembly.  487 

writings  of  Manton  that  Augustus  Toplady,  who 
was  to  stand  fortli  so  resolutely  in  its  defense  in 
the  following  century  within  the  national  Church, 
received  his  first  earnest  impressions. 

Tlie  Westminster  Confession  and  Catechisms 
continued  to  be  adhered  to  in  Scotland,  within  as 
well  as  without  the  reconstituted  Church,  even 
after  the  Acts  of  Parliament  which  had  ratified 
them  were  repealed.  And,  though  cast  out  in 
Old  England,  they  were  taken  in  in  the  New,  and 
in  other  colonies  beyond  the  Atlantic,  first  by  the 
children  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  and  then  by  the 
descendants  of  the  Scottish  and  Scoto-Irish  emi- 
grants of  a  later  day,  under  whose  joint  tutelage 
mainly  the  United  States  have  grown  up  into 
a  great  and  noble  nation — the  heirs  with  us  on 
this  side  of  the  old  Augustinian  faith  and  Presby- 
terian order,  and  I  will  add,  so  far  as  my  ac- 
quaintance warrants  me  to  speak,  its  main  hope 
and  stay  in  the  future.  In  the  same  sad  years 
not  less  emphatic  testimony  to  the  hold  their 
system  of  theology  still  had  on  the  minds  of  a 
very  pious  and  earnest  part  of  the  nation  was 
borne  by  the  publication  of  numerous  editions 
of  the  Shorter  Catechism  in  England.  These  in- 
controvertibly  show,  either  that,  notwithstanding 
their  hard  lot,  Nonconformists  were  at  that  time 
more  numerous  than  has  generally  been  supposed, 
or  else  that  Evangelical  ministers  of  the  national 


488  Conchcsioji  a? id  Results 

Church  did  not  yet  scruple  to  avail  themselves  of 
a  Catechism  which  they  knew  King  Charles  and 
his  chaplains  had  in  1648  been  willing  to  sanc- 
tion ;  and  thus  even  under  apparent  defeat  Puri- 
tan theology  and  Puritan  antipathy  to  Romanism 
continued  largely  to  influence  the  English  nation. 
In  the  State  during  these  sad  years  things  went 
from  bad  to  worse  till  the  tyranny,  licentiousness, 
and  Popish  proclivities  of  the  later  Stuart  kings 
once  more  roused  the  nation  against  them,  and 
provoked  a  revolution  which,  being  more  strictly 
kept  within  the  lines  of  the  constitution  than  that 
of  1649,  has  proved  more  practical  and  permanent. 
With  the  advent  of  William  of  Orange  to  the  Brit- 
ish throne  Protestantism  was  once  more  saved, 
and  civil  and  religious  liberty  at  length  was  settled 
on  a  stable  foundation.  He  not  only  granted  by 
law  a  large  toleration  outside  to  orthodox  dissent- 
ers, but  also  strove  to  make  the  national  Church 
so  comprehensive  that  if  possible  the  mischief  of 
St.  Bartholomew's  day  might  be  repaired  and 
moderate  Puritans  again  find  room  within  its  pale. 
The  success  of  this  great  scheme  was  prevented 
chiefly  by  the  Jacobites  and  extreme  High  Church- 
men, but  in  part  also,  it  must  be  admitted,  by  the 
indifference  shown  toward  it  by  not  a  few  of  the 
Puritan  leaders.  Notwithstanding  the  hard  ex- 
periences through  which  they  had  passed,  they 
were  still   a  numerous  and  influential  body,  espe- 


of  the  Assembly.  4cS9 

cially   in   London    and   other  towns.     It  seemed 
as    if,   like    ancient    Israel,    the    more    they    were 
afflicted  the  more  they  multiplied  and  grew,  and 
that  it  was  not  till   the  counsel  of  Balaam  was 
adopted  against  them,  or  by  them  against  them- 
selves and  they  fell  off  from  the  Evangelical  faith 
of  their  fathers,  that  much  real  injury  happened 
to  them.     "  So  far  as  outward  prosperity  was  con- 
cerned the  position  and  prospects  of  Presbyterian- 
ism  were  never,"  Dr.  M'Crie  assures  us,  "  brighter 
or  more  promising  than  at  the  era  of  the  Revo- 
lution.    In  the  great  metropolis  its  chapels  were 
thickly  planted,  and  they  were  filled  with  wealthy 
and  influential  congregations,  which,  so  long  as 
the  older   ministers  survived,  were  favored   with 
a  pure  and  vigorous  dispensation  of  the  Gospel, 
and  in  good  measure  kept  alive  the  flame  of  holy 
zeal  and  heavenly   devotion   which   had  warmed 
the  Church  under  the  winter  of  persecution."    Dr. 
Stoughton  seems  to  think  that  at  that  era  Pres- 
byterians,   Independents,    and    Baptists    together 
embraced  nearly  half  of  the  population  of  Eng- 
land.    Early  in  the    i8th   century  a  religious  de- 
clension was  ushered  in,  which  in  greater  or  less 
decfree  extended  to  all  the   Churches  in  Britain 
and  on  the  Continent,  "a  spiritual  blight,  which," 
as  Dr.  M'Crie  so  well   says,  "  it  is  difficult  to  ex- 
plain in  any  other  way  than  by  the  withdrawal  of 
God's  Spirit  from  the   Churches  of  the  Reforma- 


490  Conclusion  and  Results 

tion."  The  Presbyterians  of  England,  from  their 
aversion  to  or  neglect  of  subscription,  even  in  the 
most  general  form,  were  among  the  first  to  suffer 
in  this  long  and  chilling  winter  time.  Many  of 
their  congregations  dwindled  away ;  not  a  {qv^  of 
their  members,  coming  under  the  new  Evangeli- 
cal impulse  given  to  England  by  Whitfield,  sought 
for  themselves  a  new  home.  Others  merged  with 
the  Independents ;  others  lapsed  into  Rationalism, 
if  not  into  Arianism  or  Unitarianism,  and  the  old 
Presbyterian  Church  of  South  Britain  now  lives 
mainly  in  the  immortal  writings  of  its  early  teach- 
ers, in  the  memory  of  the  heroic  sufferings  they 
so  meekly  bore,  and  of  their  noble-hearted  faith- 
fulness to  Christ  and  His  truth  in  times  of  trial 
and  rebuke.  The  torch  of  Evangelical  Presby- 
terianism  has  been  once  more  rekindled  from 
Scotland,  and  promises  now  to  give  a  brighter 
light  than  it  has  done  for  long.  But  the  old  lamp 
has  been  virtually  extinguished,  and  the  lamp- 
stand  removed  out  of  its  place — reading  to  all,  in 
these  somewhat  similar  times,  the  much  needed 
lesson  that  no  past  attainments,  no  past  services, 
no  past  sacrifices  will  avail  to  preserve  a  Church 
from  decay  and  dissolution  if  it  hold  not  the  be- 
ginning of  its  confidence  steadfast  unto  the  end, 
if  it  cleave  not  close  to  its  divine  Redeemer  and 
be  not  unashamed  of  Him  and  His  words  when 
brought  face  to  face  with  any  faithless  and  scoffing 


of  the  Assembly.  491 

if  it  allow  the  light  of  Evangchcal 
truth  and  the  fire  of  EvangeHcal  piety  to  die  out 
or  to  die  down.  Let  those  of  us  who  think  we 
stand  remember  those  who  have  fallen,  and  let  us 
take  good  heed  to  ourselves  lest  there  be  in  any 
of  us  an  evil  heart  of  unbelief  in  departing  from 
the  living  God,  and  from  Him  who  is  the  light  and 
life  of  men.  And  let  us  persevere  in  prayer,  that 
He  with  whom  is  the  residue  of  the  Spirit  may 
be  pleased  to  send  down  on  us,  in  more  abundant 
measure  than  ever  hitherto,  the  influences  of  His 
Holy  Spirit  to  revive  His  work  in  all  the  Churches 
of  the  Presbyterian  family  and  to  give  us  times  of 
refreshing  from  His  presence  and  from  the  glory 
of  His  power,  such  as  our  fathers  longed  for  and 
were  often  privileged  largely  to  enjoy.  The 
standards  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  have  not 
failed  to  bind  the  Church  and  nation  which  have 
held  by  them  to  many  sister  and  daughter 
Churches  of  which  we  have  no  cause  to  be 
ashamed,  and  which,  with  only  the  bond  the  As- 
sembly provided  to  bind  them  to  the  historic  past, 
— to  the  principles  embodied  in  the  creeds  of  the 
undivided  Church,  and  to  the  teaching  of  Augus- 
tine and  Calvin — have  continued  to  live  and  thrive 
and  do  as  noble  service  in  the  cause  of  our  com- 
mon Lord  as  any  of  those  which  claim  a  higher 
pedigree  and  retain  a  more  rigid  and  elaborate 
ritual.     And  the  end  is  not  yet,  nor  while  God 


492  Conclusion  and  Results. 

continues  to  honor  the  EvangeHcal  teaching  of  so 
many  of  the  distinguished  ministers  in  all  our 
Presbyterian  Churches  to  turn  multitudes  from 
lives  of  sin  and  selfishness  to  those  of  holiness  and 
self-sacrifice,  to  comfort  the  wounded  in  spirit  and 
quicken  the  careless,  have  we  any  cause  to  fear  for 
the  great  principles  of  that  Evangelical  system 
long  held  in  common  by  all  the  Reformed 
Churches,  and  still  the  surest  guarantee  of  their 
vitality  and  success. 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX. 


NOTE  A,  pp.  2,  7. 

The  old  English  Puritan  was  such  an  one  that  honored  God 
al)Ove  all,  and  under  God  gave  every  one  his  due.  His  first  care 
was  to  serve  God,  and  therein  he  did  not  what  was  good  in  his 
own,  but  in  God's  sight,  making  the  Word  of  God  the  rule  of  his 
worship.  He  highly  esteemed  order  in  the  house  of  God,  but 
would  not  under  color  of  that  submit  to  superstitious  rites.  .  .  . 
He  reverenced  authority  keeping  within  its  sphere,  but  durst  not, 
under  pretext  of  subjection  to  the  higher  powers,  worship  God 
after  the  traditions  of  men.  He  made  conscience  of  all  God's 
ordinances,  though  some  he  esteemed  of  more  consequence.  He 
was  much  in  prayer,  with  which  he  began  and  closed  the  day. 
In  it  he  was  exercised  in  his  closet,  family,  and  public  assembly. 
He  esteemed  that  manner  of  prayer  best  where  by  the  gift  of  God 
expx-essions  were  varied  according  to  the  present  wants  and 
occasions;  yet  did  he  not  account  set  forms  unlawful  ...  he 
did  not  wholly  reject  the  Liturgy,  but  the  corruptions  of  it.  He 
accounted  preaching  as  necessary  now  as  in  the  primitive  church, 
God's  pleasure  being  still  by  the  foolishness  of  preaching  to  save 
those  that  believe.  ...  He  esteemed  that  preaching  best  wherein 
was  most  of  God  and  least  of  man,  .  .  .  and  that  method  best 
which  was  most  helpful  to  understanding,  affections,  and  memory. 
The  Lord's  day  he  esteemed  a  divine  ordinance,  and  rest  on  it 
necessary  so  far  as  conduced  to  holiness.  He  was  careful  to 
remember  it,  to  get  house  and  heart  in  order  for  it,  and  when  it 
came    he    was   studious    to    improve   it.     Lawful   recreations    he 

495 


496  Appendix. 

thought  this  day  unseasonable,  and  unlawful  ones  much  more 
abominable.  Yet  he  knew  the  liberty  which  God  gave  him  for 
needful  refreshing,  which  he  did  neither  refuse  nor  abuse.  The 
sacrament  of  baptism  he  received  in  infancy,  which  he  looked  back 
to  in  age  to  answer  his  engagements  and  claim  his  privilege.  The 
Lord's  supper  he  accounted  part  of  his  soul's  food  ...  he  esteemed 
it  an  ordinance  of  nearest  communion  with  Christ,  and  so  requiring 
most  exact  preparation.  He  endeavored  to  have  the  scandalous 
cast  out  of  communion,  but  he  cast  not  out  himself  because  the 
scandalous  were  suffered  by  the  negligence  of  others.  He  thought 
that  God  had  left  a  rule  in  his  Word  for  discipline,  and  that 
aristocratical  by  elders,  not  monarchical  by  bishops,  nor  demo- 
cratical  by  the  people.  Right  discipline  he  judged  pertaining  not 
to  the  being  but  to  the  well-being  of  a  church;  therefore  he 
esteemed  those  churches  most  pure  where  the  government  is  by 
elders,  yet  unchurched  not  those  where  it  was  otherwise.  Perfec- 
tion in  churches  he  thought  rather  a  thing  to  be  desired  than  hoped 
for.  And  so  he  expected  not  a  church  state  without  all  defects. 
The  corruptions  that  were  in  churches  he  thought  it  his  duty  to 
bewail  with  endeavors  of  amendment,  yet  would  he  not  separate 
where  he  might  partake  in  the  worship  and  not  in  the  corruption. 
.  .  .  He  put  not  holiness  in  churches ;  he  would  have  them  kept 
decent,  not  magniticent.  His  chiefest  music  was  singing  of  Psalms, 
wherein  though  he  neglected  not  the  melody  of  the  voice,  he  looked 
chiefly  after  that  of  the  heart.  He  accounted  religion  an  engage- 
ment to  duty,  that  the  best  Christians  should  be  best  husbands, 
best  wives,  best  parents,  best  children,  best  masters,  best  servants, 
best  magistrates,  best  subjects.  .  .  .  The  family  he  endeavored 
to  make  a  church,  both  in  regard  of  persons  and  exercises,  admit- 
ting none  into  it  but  such  as  feared  God,  and  laboring  that  those 
that  were  born  into  it  might  be  born  again  unto  God.  He  blessed 
his  family,  morning  and  evening,  by  the  word  and  prayer.  .  .  . 
His  whole  life  he  accounted  a  warfare,  wherein  Christ  was  his 
Captain,  his  arms  prayers  and  tears,  the  cross  his  banner,  and  his 
word,  "  vincit  qui  patitury —  77/<?  Character  of  the  Old  English 
Puritan  or  Nonconformist,  by  John  Geree,  M,  A.    London,  1646. 


Appendix.  497 


The  odds  or  difference  between  the   Knave's   Puritan 
AND  THE  Knave  Puritan. 

The  Knave's  Puritan.  The  Knave  Puritan. 

He  that  resists  the  world,  the  flesh,  He  whose  best  good  is  only  good  to 

and  fiend,  seem. 

And   makes    a  conscience  how    his  And,  seeming  holy,  gets  some  false 

days  to  spend,  esteem  ; 

Who  hates  excessive  drinking,  drabs,  Who  makes  religion  hide  hypocrisy 

and  dice,  And  zeal  to  cover  o'er  his  villany ; 

And  (in  his  heart)  hath  God  in  high-  Whose  purity  (much  like  the  devil's 

est  price,  ape) 

That  lives  conformable  to  law    and  Can    shift   himself  into    an    angel's 

state,  shape  ; 

Norfromthetruth  will  fly  or  separate.  And    play  the  rascal  most  devoutly 
That  will  not  swear  or  cozen,  cogge  trim, 

or  lie.  Not  caring  who  sinks,  so  himself 
But  strives  in  God's  fear  how  to  live  may  swim  ; 

and  die;  He's  the  Knave  Puritan,  and  only 
He  that  seeks  this  to  do  the  best  he  he 

can.  Makes  the  Knave's  Puritan  abused 
He  is  the  knave's  abused  Puritan.  be. 

It  is  now  come  to  that  pass  that  if  any  one  give  up  his  name  to 
Christ,  or  but  look  toward  religion,  he  is  presently  branded  with 
the  infamous  name  of  Puritan  ;  but  the  truth  is,  it  is  no  disgrace 
to  be  so  styled,  but  rather,  as  now,  it  is  an  honor.  Once  (as  a 
learned  bishop  could  say)  only  such  passed  for  Puritans  as  opposed 
the  church-government,  and  cried  out  for  discipline,  but  now  to 
be  truly  religious  is  to  become  a  Puritan ;  .  .  .  yea,  to  be  a  mere 
moral  honest  man  is  to  incur  that  censure.  Yea,  if  a  man  be  but 
orthodoxal,  evangelical,  papists  will  not  doubt  to  load  him  with 
names  more  than  a  few. — P.  391  of  IVorks  of  R.  Harris,  B.D., 
one  of  the  members  of  the  Assembly.     See  also  E  85,  No.  20. 


NOTE  B,  p.  54. 

Travels,  if  ordained  to  the  office  of  deacon  in  England,  was 
certainly  oi'dained  to  that  of  presbyter  in  the  Puritan  Church  of 
Antwerp.  He  was  admitted  as  Lecturer  at  the  Temple,  and  for 
some  years  was  associated  with  Hooker  there,  and  was  very  highly 
esteemed  by  the  benchers,  who  till  that  time  had  continued  to 
receive  the  communion  sitting.  When  deprived  of  his  lectureship 
he  was  invited  to  Dublin  by  the  Archbishop,  and  made  Provost  of 
Trinity  College,  where  he  had  the  honor  of  training  Archbishop 
32 


498  Appendix. 

Ussher,  who  held  him  in  the  highest  regard.  With  respect  to 
purity  of  language  and  style,  Mr.  Marsden  says  that  "  Cartwright 
and  Travers  are  at  least  equal  to  Hooker,  whose  power  lies  rather 
in  majesty  of  thought  than  in  felicity  of  expression.  In  the  pulpit, 
Travers  preaching  before  the  same  audience — one  of  the  most 
accomplished  in  England — carried  away  the  palm  of  eloquence 
from  his  great  opponent  by  the  consent  of  all  parties.  Cart- 
wright's  eloquence  had  won  the  admiration  of  Cambridge."  Yet 
according  to  Hallam,  "  so  stately  and  graceful  is  the  march  of 
Hooker's  periods,  so  various  the  fall  of  his  musical  cadences  upon 
the  ear,  so  rich  in  images,  so  condensed  in  sentences,  so  grave  and 
noble  his  diction,  so  little  is  there  of  vulgarity  in  his  racy  idiom, 
of  pedantry  in  his  learned  phrases,  that  I  know  not  whether  any 
later  writer  has  more  admirably  displayed  the  capacities  of  our 
language  or  produced  passages  more  worthy  of  comparison  with 
the  splendid  monuments  of  antiquity,  ...  He  inquired  into  the 
nature  and  foundation  of  law  itself  as  the  rule  of  operation  to  all 
created  being,  ,  .  ,  and  having  thoroughly  established  the  funda- 
mental distinction  between  laws  natural  and  positive,  eternal  and 
temporary,  immutable  and  variable,  he  came  with  all  this  strength 
of  moral  philosophy  to  discriminate  by  the  same  criterion  the 
various  rules  and  precepts  contained  in  the  Scripture.  ...  It  was 
maintained  by  this  great  writer,  not  only  that  ritual  observances 
are  variable  according  to  the  discretion  of  ecclesiastical  rulers,  but 
that  no  certain  form  of  polity  is  set  down  in  Scripture  as  generally 
indispensable  for  a  Christian  church,  Y2X,  however,  from  con- 
ceding to  his  antagonists  the  fact  which  they  assumed,  he  contended 
for  episcopacy  as  an  apostolical  institution,  and  always  preferable 
when  circumstances  would  allow  its  preservation,  to  the  more 
democratical  model  of  the  Calvinistic  congregations"  {Histojy  of 
England,  vol.  ii,  pp.  215,  217).  Hooker,  says  Mr.  Rawson 
Gardiner,  "  had  maintained  that  the  disputed  points  being  matters 
which  were  not  ordained  by  any  immutable  divine  ordinance, 
were  subject  to  change  from  time  to  time,  according  to  the 
circumstances  of  the  church.  For  the  time  being,  these  questions 
had  been  settled  by  the  law  of  the  Church  of  England,  to  which 
the  Queen  as  the  head  and  representative  of  the  nation  had  given 
her  assent.  With  this  settlement  he  was  perfectly  content,  and  he 
advised  his  opponents  to  submit  to  the  law  which  had  been  thus 
laid  down.  Upon  looking  closely,  however,  into  Hooker's  great 
work,  it  becomes  evident  that  his  conclusions  are  based  upon  two 


Appendix.  499 

dtstinct  arguments,  which,  although  they  were  blended  together 
in  his  own  mind  at  some  sacrifice  of  logical  precision,  were  not 
likely  in  future  to  find  favor  at  the  same  time  with  any  one  class 
of  reasoners.  When  he  argues  from  Scripture  and  from  the  prac- 
tice of  the  early  church,  the  as  yet  undeveloped  features  of  Ban- 
croft and  Laud  are  plainly  to  be  discerned.  When  he  proclaims 
the  supremacy  of  law,  and  weighs  the  pretensions  of  the  Puritans 
in  the  scales  of  reason  he  shows  a  mind  the  thoughts  of  which  are 
cast  in  the  same  mould  with  those  of  that  school  of  thinkers  of 
whom  Bacon  is  the  acknowledged  head.  Hooker's  greatness  in- 
deed, like  the  greatness  of  all  by  whom  England  was  ennobled  in 
the  Elizabethan  age,  consisted  rather  in  the  entireness  of  his  nature 
than  in  the  thoroughness  with  which  his  particular  investigations 
were  carried  out." — History  of  England  from  1603  to  1616,  vol.  i. 
pp.  157,  158. 


NOTE  C,  p.  73. 

Their  petition  is  reprinted  in  E,  170,  No.  4.  Its  contents  are 
given  pretty  fully  by  Fuller  and  Neal,  and  somewhat  abridged  are 
the  following: — I.  In  the  church  service — That  the  cross  in  bap- 
tism, interrogatories  ministered  to  infants,  and  confirmation  be 
taken  away;  that  baptism  be  not  ministered  by  women,  and  cap 
and  surplice  be  not  urged  ;  that  examination  go  before  admission 
to  the  communion;  \\\zX. priests,  absolution,  and  such  terms  be  cor- 
rected; that  the  ring  be  not  enforced,  the  service  be  abridged, 
church  music  moderated,  and  canonical  Scriptures  only  read.  2. 
Concerning  church  ministers — Not  to  be  admitted  unless  able  for 
duties,  and  to  preach  diligently,  and  such  as  are  already  entered, 
and  cannot  preach  to  remove  or  pay  a  preacher;  that  non-residency 
be  not  permitted,  that  King  Edward's  statute  for  the  lawfulness  of 
ministers'  marriage  be  revived,  that  ministers  be  not  urged  to  sub- 
scribe but,  according  to  law,  to  the  Articles  of  Religion  and  the 
king's  supremacy.  3.  For  church  livings  and  maintenance — That 
comniendams  and  pluralities  be  discontinued,  and  that  impropria- 
tions be  to  some  extent  recovered.  4.  For  church  discipline — 
That  the  discipline  and  excommunication  may  be  administered 
according  to  Christ's  own  institution,  or  at  least  enormities  re- 
dressed, as  the  issuing  of  excommunications  by  lay  officials,  and 
the  too  free  use  of  them  and  of  the  ex  officio  oath.  The  official 
account  of  the  conference  to  which  this  petition  led  was  published 


500  Appendix. 

by  Dr.  Barlow,  Dean  of  Chester,  who,  according  to  Fuller,  "  set  a 
sharp  edge  on  his  own,  and  a  blunt  one  on  his  adversaries'  wea- 
pons." Drs.  Reynolds  and  Sparkes  complained  that  they  were 
wronged  by  that  relation,  and  Neal  says  that  the  author  afterward 
repented  of  it.  Dr.  Harris  thinks  the  Puritans  need  not  have  com- 
plained so  much,  since,  if  he  has  not  done  justice  to  their  argu- 
ments, he  has  abundantly  made  up  for  it  by  showing  that  their 
opponents  were  gross  flatterers.  None  of  their  flatteries,  however, 
was  more  gross  than  that  of  the  author  of  this  "  Sum  and  Sub- 
stance of  the  Conference,"  who,  while  omitting  all  the  coarse  jests 
and  low  buffooneries  of  the  king,  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  in 
his  abridgment  of  the  proceedings  the  only  wrong  he  has  done 
"  is  to  his  excellent  Majesty,  a  syllable  of  whose  admirable  speeches 
it  was  pity  to  lose — his  words,  as  they  were  uttered  by  him,  being 
as  Solomon  speaketh,  like  apples  of  gold  with  pidio'es  of  silver''' 
Sir  John  Harrington  has  preserved  some  of  these  precious  pictures, 
which  may  still  be  seen  in  Nuga;  Antiqiuv,  vol.  ii.  p.  228,  or  in 
Spedding's  Bacon,  vol.  iii.  p.  127.  The  king's  own  account  of  it  is 
that  they  had  "  kept  such  a  revel  with  the  Puritans  ...  as  was 
never  heard  the  like,"  and  that  he  had  '*  peppered  them  soundly." 
Some  still  defend  his  jest  about  weak  consciences,  forgetting  that 
though  others  than  ministers  were  not  called  to  subscribe,  others 
than  ministers  were  expected  to  observe  the  "  nocent  ceremonies." 
Some  also  suppose  that  they  increased  their  demands,  asking  not 
only  exemption  from  certain  ceremonies,  as  in  their  petition,  but 
the  abolition  of  them ;  but  this  arises  from  not  distinguishing  be- 
tween their  demands,  and  the  reasons  they  urged,  when  pressed  to 
it,  in  support  of  these  demands. 

Besides  the  concessions  mentioned  on  page  69  as  made  to  them, 
there  was  one  in  regard  to  confirmation  which  has  not  attracted 
the  notice  it  deserves,  and  which,  when  completed  in  1662,  nearly 
brought  it  to  what  Calvin  had  desired.  It  was  only  to  be  adminis- 
tered to  those  who  had  come  to  years  of  discretion,  and  who  were 
prepared  to  take  on  themselves  the  vows  made  for  them  when  bap- 
tized. Previously  it  might  be  administered  to  children  as  soon  as 
they  could  say  their  catechism,  and  no  promise  or  vow  had  been 
required  of  those  receiving  it.  The  addition  made  to  the  title  of 
the  absolution,  to  have  brought  out  the  king's  idea,  would  have 
required  to  be  "or  declaration  of  remission  of  sins,"  not  simply 
"or  remission  of  sins." 

The  contest  did  not  end  with  the  discomfiture  of  the  Puritans  at 


Appendix,  50 1 

the  Conference.  It  was  only  removed  from  Hampton  Court  to 
Westminster.  One  of  the  first  steps  taken  by  the  House  of 
Commons  was  to  name  a  Committee  to  prepare  bills  for  the 
redress  of  ecclesiastical  grievances.  The  king  deeply  resented 
this,  and  through  his  influence  the  bills  were  rejected  in  the  House 
of  Lords.  But  the  Commons  followed  up  their  bills  by  an  "  out- 
spoken address  to  the  king,"  in  which  they  aver  that  their  "  desires 
were  of  peace  only  and  their  device  of  unity."  Their  aim,  as  Mr. 
Green  says  (vol.  iii.  p.  6i),  had  been  to  put  an  end  to  the  long-stand- 
ing dissension  among  the  ministers,  and  to  preserve  uniformity  by 
the  abandonment  of  a  few  ceremonies  of  small  importance,  by  the 
redress  of  some  ecclesiastical  abuses,  and  by  the  establishment  of 
an  efficient  training  for  a  preaching  clergy.  If  they  had  waived 
their  right  to  deal  with  these  matters  during  the  old  age  of  Eliza- 
beth, they  asserted  it  now :  "  Let  your  Majesty  be  pleased  to  re- 
ceive jiublic  information  from  your  Commons  in  Parliament,  as 
well  of  the  abuses  in  the  church  as  in  the  civil  state  and  govern- 
ment. Your  Majesty  would  be  misinformed  if  any  man  should 
deliver  that  the  Kings  of  England  have  any  absolute  power  in 
themselves,  either  to  alter  religion  or  to  make  any  laws  concerning 
the  same,  otherwise  than,  as  in  temporal  causes,  by  consent  of  Par- 
liament." Thus  nobly  did  the  English  House  of  Commons  range 
themselves  on  the  side  of  the  contemned  ministers  in  the  struggle 
which  the  ministers  in  Scotland  had  been  left  to  maintain  alone. 


Note  D,  p.  89. 

"  Anticipating  their  high  destiny  and  the  sublime  doctrines  of 
liberty  that  would  grow  out  of  the  principles  on  which  their 
religious  tenets  were  established,  Robinson  gave  them  a  farewell 
breathing  a  freedom  of  opinion  and  an  independence  of  authority 
such  as  then  were  hardly  known  in  the  world.  .  ,  .  'When  the 
ship  was  ready  to  carry  us  away,'  writes  Edward  Winslow,  '  the 
brethren  that  stayed  at  Leyden,  having  again  solemnly  sought  the 
Lord  with  us  and  for  us,  feasted  us  that  were  to  go,  at  our  pastor's 
house,  being  large ;  where  we  refreshed  ourselves,  after  tears,  with 
singing  of  psalms,  making  joyful  melody  in  our  hearts,  as  well  as 
with  the  voice,  there  being  many  of  the  congregation  very  expert 
in  music;  and  indeed  it  was  the  sweetest  melody  that  ever  mine 
ears  heard.  After  this  they  accompanied  us  to  Delft-haven,  where 
we  went  to  embark,  .   .  .  and  after  prayer  performed  by  our  pastor, 


502  Appendix, 

when  a  flood  of  tears  was  poured,  they  accompanied  us  to  the 
ship,  but  were  not  able  to  speak  one  to  another  for  the  abundance 
of  sorrow  to  part.'  A  prosperous  wind  soon  wafts  the  vessel  to 
Southampton,  and  in  a  fortnight  the  Mayflower  and  the  Speedwell, 
freighted  with  the  first  colony  of  New  England,  leave  Southampton 
for  America."— Bancroft,  vol.  i.  p.  307.  Once  and  again  they  had 
to  return  through  the  faint-heartedness  of  the  captain  of  the  Speed- 
well, and,  dismissing  her,  with  numbers  winnowed,  "  the  little 
band,  not  of  resolute  men  only,  but  wives  and  children,  a  floating 
village,  went  on  board  the  single  ship,  which  was  hired  to  convey 
them  across  the  Atlantic."  Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  re- 
produce such  memorable  incidents  in  verse,  none  perhaps  more 
interesting  than  the  following,  coming  from  the  very  time  :— 

In  midst  of  all  these  woful  stirs  grave  godly  men  sat  musing. 

How  they  their  talents  might  improve  to  honor  God  in  using. 

Nine  hundred  leagues  of  roaring  seas  dishearten  feeble  parts, 

Till  cruel  handling  hasten  on,  and  God  doth  strengthen  hearts. 

"  Come,"  quoth  the  husband,  "  my  dear  wife,  canst  thou  the  seas  endure. 

With  all  our  young  and  tender  babes?     Let's  put  our  faith  in  ure." 

With  watery  eyes  the  wife  replies,  "  What  remedy  remains?" 

"  Forsaking  all  for  Christ  his  sake  will  prove  the  greatest  gains." 

Thus  pass  the  people  to  their  ships.     Some  grieve  they  should  go  free, 

But  make  them  swear,  and  search  them  bare,  and  take  what  coin  they  see. 

And,  being  once  on  ocean  large,  whose  depths  the  earth  wide  sever, 

Return  no  more,  though  winds  them  taught  to  end  their  course  endeavor; 

In  unknown  depths  and  pathless  seas  their  nights  and  days  they  spend  : 

Midst  stormy  winds  and  mountain  waves,  long  time  no  land  they  kenn'd  ; 

At  ship's  mast  doth  Christ's  pastor  preach  while  waves,  like  prelate  browed 

Would  fling  them  from  their  pulpit  place  as  not  by  them  allowed ; 

The  swelling  surges  raging  come  to  stop  their  mouths  with  foam 

For  publishing  of  every  truth  that  by  God's  word  is  known. 

But  Christ,  as  once,  now  says,  "  Peace,  ye  waves,  be  still ;" 

For  all  their  height  they  fall  down  flat,  they  must  obey  His  will. 

Long-looked  for  land  at  last  they  eye,  unknown,  yet  own  they  will. 

To  plant  therein  new  colonies,  wide  wilderness  to  fill. 


NOTE  E,  p.  94. 
"  Of  all  Charles's  errors  the  most  fatal  to  him  was  his  misunder- 
standing of  his  own  countrymen.  They  were  loyal  to  the  Crown, 
as  they  showed  at  Preston,  and  Dunbar,  and  Worcester.  They 
were  proud  of  seeing  a  prince  of  their  own  race  on  the  English 
throne.  As  long  as  their  religion  was  let  alone,  their  lives  and 
all  that  they  had  were  at  the  disposal  of  their  sovereign.  But 
Charles  chose  to  touch  their  allegiance  to  a  still  higher  Sovereign, 


Appendix.  5^3 

and  they  became  immovable  as  their  own  mountains.  There  is 
something  humorous  in  the  spectacle  of  an  Archbishop  Laud 
trying  to  teach  such  a  people  as  this  a  better  religion.  He  was 
the  man  who  was  to  show  Scotland  how  to  say  its  prayers!  No 
more  memories  of  Knox  and  Melville ;  no  more  outpourings  of 
the  spirit  and  rash  extempore  addresses  to  the  Almighty  of 
ignorance  and  vanity ;  no  more  lay  elders ;  no  more  General 
Assemblies.  Scotland  was  to  be  once  more  decently  ruled  by 
bishops  duly  consecrated,  the  parish  churches  served  by  surpliced 
clerks,  on  whose  heads  the  bishops'  hands  had  rested.  And  there 
must  be  a  liturgy  and  altars,  and  reverential  music  to  generate 
correct '  catholic  '  emotions,  and  canons  of  discipline  and  ecclesias- 
tical courts  to  enforce  them.  .  .  In  England,  where  the  Church  was 
composite,  Laud  had  perhaps  the  letter  of  the  law,  or  at  least  some 
show  of  law  for  himself.  Li  Scotland  he  had  no  law  at  all,  but 
when  he  heard  how  his  liturgy  had  been  received,  he  said  merely 
that  '  he  meant  to  be  obeyed,'  and  when  he  was  told  that  he 
must  back  his  orders  there  with  40,000  men,  both  he  and  the 
king  thought  it  was  both  right  and  convenient  that  the  40,000 
men  should  be  raised  and  sent.  To  this  intention  the  Scots 
replied  with  the  ever-famous  National  Covenant,  by  which  they 
declared  '  their  sincere  and  unfeigned  resolution,  as  they  should 
answer  to  Jesus  Christ  in  the  great  day,  and  under  pain  of  God's 
everlasting  wrath,'  to  defend  their  national  faith.  The  signing  of 
the  Covenant  in  Edinburgh  on  March  2,  1 638,  was  perhaps  the 
most  remarkable  scene  in  Scotland's  remarkable  history." — PVoude 
in  Edinburgh  Review ^  October  1882. 


NOTE  F,  p.  105. 

The  following  specimen  of  their  barbarities  has  been  recently 
brought  under  my  notice  : — 

"  Thomas  Murray,  minister  of  the  Episcopal  Church  of  Killelagh, 
was  brutally  massacred  in  the  Irish  Rebellion  of  1641.  It  appears, 
by  a  petition  presented  by  his  widow  to  the  General  Assembly  of 
the  Church  of  Scotland  at  St.  Andrews,  in  1642,  that  he  was 
actually  crucified  on  a  tree ;  her  two  sons  killed,  and  cut  to  pieces 
before  her  eyes;  her  own  body  frightfully  cut  and  mained,  in 
sundry  parts  ;  her  tongue  half  cut  out,  and  that  she  was  kept  in 
prison  and  inhumanly  used  by  the  rebels,  from  whom,  at  last,  by 
God's  merciful  providence,  she  escaped,  all  which  was  testified 


504  Appendix. 

under  the  hands  of  the  best  nobles  and  councillors  of  the  kingdom  ; 
and  humbly  praying  them  to  extend  their  charity  to  her,  which  was 
granted. —  The  Hamilton  Mamcscripts,  edited  by  Dr.  Lowry,  1 867, 
p.  35,  note.     See  also,  E  112,  No.  24. 

Description  of  the  Assembly.' — Pp.  175,  176,  177,  178. 
The  question  is  often  asked,  Is  there  any  trustworthy  engraving 
of  the  Assembly  in  session  ?  and  I  am  afraid  it  must  be  answered 
in  the  negative.  Portraits  of  a  number  of  the  divines,  arrayed  as 
they  were  wont  to  appear  in  the  pulpit,  are  still  preserved,  and 
there  is  a  modern  engraving  professing  to  represent  the  Assembly 
in  that  stormy  session  when  Nye  made  his  famous  speech  against 
Presbytery.  But  it  does  not  rest  on  any  sure  historical  basis,  nor 
give  an  accurate  idea  of  the  conclave  as  it  really  sat.  It  represents 
the  divines  as  arrayed  in  gowns  and  as  generally  bareheaded,  and 
in  both  these  respects  I  think  it  is  incorrect.  Fuller  tells  us  that 
Bishop  Westfield  and  the  episcopal  divines,  who  appeared  in  their 
gowns  and  canonical  habits,  seemed  the  only  nonconformists. 
Neal  says  that  the  most  of  the  divines  "  came  not  in  their  canonical 
habits,  but  chiefly  in  black  coats  [or  cloaks]  and  bands,  in  imitation 
of  the  foreign  Protestants."  The  best  aid  therefore  to  a  correct 
idea  of  the  Assembly  in  session  is  probal^ly  furnished  by  the  engrav- 
ing of  the  French  Synod  prefixed  to  Vol.  i.  of  Quick's  Synodicon 
Gallia:  Kefortfiatce,  and  by  that  prefixed  to  the  account  of  the 
Dissenting  Synod  of  Salters'  Hall  in  1719.  In  both,  the  divines 
are  represented  as  wearing  not  the  academic  gown  or  the  modern 
so-called  Geneva  one,  but  the  old  Geneva  cloak,  and  as  retaining 
not  only  their  skull-caps,  but  their  high-crowned  hats  when  seated 
in  the  Assembly.  I  think  it  was  so  also  at  Westminster,  in  regard 
to  the  hat  as  well  as  the  cloak,  both  because  that  was  the  practice 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  to  which  in  most  things  they  conformed, 
and  also  because  Neal  expressly  includes  among  their  earliest 
rules  the  following  :  "  That  all  the  members  of  the  Assembly  have 
liberty  to  be  covered  except  the  scribes."  To  these  some  time  after 
the  same  indulgence  was  granted,  and  on  17th  June  1 645  the 
following  additional  rule  was  adopted  :  "  That  in  case  any  member 
have  occasion  to  be  out  of  his  place,  that  then  he  be  uncovered''''  ^ 

^  It  was  on  2iRt  September  that  the  Assembly  was  authorized  to  remove  to 
and  at  its  last  session  in  the  following  week  that  it  "  it  adjourned  to  Hierusalem 
chamber  Monday  morning  [2d  October]  10  o'clock." 

2  Minutes  0/ the  Assembly,  p.  105. 


Appendix,  505 

— that  is  undoubtedly,  take  off  his  liat,  not  his  skull-cap.  In  the 
satirical  pamj")lilets  of  the  period,  there  are  various  references  to 
the  dress  of  the  Puritan  ministers,  especially  (with  a  portrait)  in 
that  entitled  The  Assembly  Alan :  "  His  hands  are  not  in  his 
gloves,  but  his  gloves  in  his  hands.  .  .  .  His  gown  (I  mean  his 
cloak)  reaches  but  his  pockets.  .  .  .  His  doublet  and  hose  are  of 
dark  blue,  a  grain  deeper  than  pure  Coventry ;  but  of  late  he's  in 
black."  Their  hair  was  generally  cut  close,  according  to  a  fashion 
now  in  vogue  again,  and  the  beard  and  moustache  were  often 
retained  and  carefully  trimmed.  The  description  applies  chiefly 
to  the  younger  men.  The  older  members,  I  suppose,  continued 
to  have  longer  cloaks,  and  more  flowing  locks,  and  to  wear  the 
Elizabethan  ruff  rather  than  the  broad  band  or  falling  collar.  In 
E  95,  No.  3,  the  following  description  is  given  of  the  Reformed 
minister:  "  His  habit  shall  be  a  high-crowned  hat,  a  black  leather 
[skull]  cap,  a  sad  medley  cloak,  and  jerkin  of  the  same,  violet 
hose,  and  russet  stockings," 

NOTE  G,  p.  197. 

Besides  the  extracts  from  the  Minutes  given  in  the  text,  the 
following  are  the  authorities  which  seem  to  me  to  warrant  this 
view  of  the  Assembly's  attitude  toward  this  question  : — 

1.  Jus  Divimim  Reginiinis  Ecclesiastici,  by  sundry  ministers  of 
Christ  within  the  City  of  London.  "  The  third  argument  for  the 
divine  right  of  the  mere  riding  elder  shall  be  drawn  from  I  Tim. 
v.  17  :  *  Let  the  elders  that  rule  well  be  counted  worthy  of  double 
honor,  especially  they  that  labor  in  the  word  and  doctrine.' 
From  which  words  we  may  thus  argue  for  the  divine  right  of  the 
ruling  elder  :  Major — Whatsoever  officers  in  the  church  are,  ac- 
cording to  the  word  of  Christ,  styled  elders,  invested  with  rule  in 
the  church,  approved  of  God  in  their  rule,  and  yet  distinct  from 
all  them  that  labor  in  the  word  and  doctrine,  they  are  the  ruling 
elders  in  the  church  (which  we  inquire  after),  and  thaty«;r  divino. 
Minor — But  the  officers  mentioned  in  I  Tim.  v.  17  are,  according 
to  the  word  of  Christ,  styled  elders,  [are]  invested  with  rule  in  the 
church,  approved  of  God  in  their  rule  and  yet  distinct  from  all 
them  that  labor  in  the  word  and  doctrine."  The  detailed  proofs 
and  answers  to  exceptions  extend  to  more  than  twenty  pages. 

2.  A ,  Vindication  of  the  Presbytcrial  Government  and  Ministry, 
published  by  the  ministers  and  elders  met  together  in  a  Provincial 


5o6  Appendix. 

Assembly,  November  2,  1649.  "  The  third  text  for  the  divine 
right  of  the  rtdivg  elder  is  I  Tim.  v.  17  :  '  Let  the  elders  that  rule 
well,'  etc.  .  .  .  Now  according  to  the  grammatical  construction, 
here  are  plainly  held  forth  two  sorts  of  elders,  the  one  only  ruling, 
and  the  other  also  laboring  in  word  and  doctrine.  Give  us  leave 
to  give  you  the  true  analysis  of  the  words,  i.  Here  is  a  genus,  a 
general,  and  that  is  elders.  2.  Two  distinct  species  or  kinds  of 
elders,  those  that  rule  laell,  and  those  that  labor  in  woj-d  and 
doctrine.  ...  3.  Here  we  have  two  participles,  expressing  these 
two  kinds  of  elders — ruling  and  laboring  ;  the  first  do  only  rule, 
the  second  do  also  labor  in  word  and  doctrine.  4.  Here  are  two 
distinct  articles  distinctly  annexed  to  these  two  participles  01  Trpoec- 
TOiTtq,  01  KOTTiuvTsg,  they  that  rule,  they  that  labor.  5.  Here  is  an 
eminent  discretive  particle  set  between  these  two  kinds  of  elders, 
these  two  participles,  these  two  articles  evidently  distinguishing 
the  one  from  the  other,  viz.,  fjidliara,  especially.''^  The  heads  of  the 
argument  as  well  as  the  illustrations  of  the  several  heads,  closely 
resemble  some  of  the  speeches  made  in  the  Assembly  in  1643-4. 

3.  A  Model  of  Church  Government,  by  John  Dury,  one  of  the 
Assembly  of  Divines.  "  i.  That  rtding  elders  are  officers  in  the 
church  of  God  may  be  clearly  gathered  from  Rom.  xii.  8,  i  Tim. 
v.  17,  and  I  Cor.  xii.  28.  2.  Thai  they  are  officers  distinct  from 
other  officers  is  also  plain  from  the  same  places ;  chiefly  from  that 
of  I  Tim.  V.  17,  .  .  .  for  in  [it]  he  doth  mention  two  sorts  of 
elders"  (p.  19).  See  also  A  Model  of  Church  Government  under 
the  Gospel,  by  a  minister  of  London,  approved  by  divers  of  his 
learned  brethren  :  "  All  elderships,  consisting  of  preaching  pres- 
byters and  other  elders  who  do  rule  well,  .  .  .  are  jure  divino, 
I  Tim.  V.  17." 

4.  A  Treatise  of  Ruling  Riders,  by  a  minister  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland  [James  Guthrie,  of  Stirling],  Edinburgh,  1652,  reprinted 
1699.  "  The  officers  in  the  House  of  God,  who  in  the  Scriptures 
are  called  by  the  name  of  elders,  are  of  several  sorts.  Preaching 
elders  or  ministers,  teaching  elders  or  doctors,  and  ruling  or 
governing  elders ;  all  these  three  are  oftentimes  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament comprised  under  the  general  name  of  elder"  (pp.  21,  22). 
Then,  after  reference  to  the  mistake  of  those  "who,  either  out 
of  ignorance  or  disdain,  do  call  them  lay  elders,  as  if  they  were  a 
part  of  the  people  only,  and  not  to  be  reckoned  among  the  officers 
of  the  Lord's  house,  whom  the  Popish  church  in  their  pride,  and 
Others  following  them,  call  the  clergy"  (p.  23},  the  author  pro- 


Appendix.  507 

ceeds  to  treat  of  the  institution  of  ruling  ciders,  in  which  chapter, 
after  adducing  other  ^exts,  he  says  :  The  third  place  of  Scripture  is 
I  Tim.  V,  17,  .  .  .  which  text  doth  hold  forth  and  distinguish  two 
sorts  of  elders  in  the  church,  to  whom  the  Lord  Jesus  hath  com- 
mitted the  power  of  ruling ;  one  sort  who  do  also  labor  in  the 
word  and  doctrine,  to  wit  pastors  and  teachers ;  another  sort  who 
do  only  rule,  .  .  .  and  these  are  the  ruling  elders  of  whom  we 
speak  "  (p.  29). 

5.  Dickson's  Expositio  Analytica  omnium  Apostolicarum  Epis- 
tolanim,  Glasguce,  1645.  His  comment  on  I  Tim.  v,  17  is: 
"  Ilorum  presbyterorum  duos  facit  ordines :  alterum  eorum  qui 
laborant  in  sermone  et  doctrina  quales  sunt  pastores  et  doctores, 
alterum  eorum  qui  bene  quidem  praesunt,  i.  e.  gubernandse  ecclesiae 
in  vita  et  moribus  incumbunt  et  non  laborant  in  sermone  et  doc- 
trina, quales  sunt  seniores  qui  gubernatores  vocantur,  I  Cor.  xii.  2; 
Rom.  xii.  8  "  (p.  534).  This  work  was  published  in  1647,  with 
recommendatory  notices  by  the  Prolocutor  and  Assessors,  and  the 
Scotch  Commissioners  to  the  Westminster  Assembly. 

6.  Wylie's  Abridgment  of  Rutherfurd" s  Catechism.  "  Q.  How 
is  Christ's  Kirk  ruled  at  this  time  under  the  Gospel  ?  By  his 
office-bearers,  doctors  that  opens  up  the  word,  pastors  that  presses 
it  upon  the  hearers,  elders  that  rules  in  discipline,  and  deacons 
that  cares  for  the  poor." 

7.  Rutherfurd's  Due  Right  of  Presbyteries.  "I  Tim.  v,  17. 
The  elders  who  rule  well  are  worthy  of  double  honor,  etc.  This 
place  speaketh  clear  for  ruling  elders  "  (p.  I42).  On  p.  145  he 
gives,  as  he  had  done  in  one  of  his  speeches  in  the  Assembly,  the 
same  five  reasons  as  are  given  above  in  No.  2  for  so  expounding 
this  text,  and  enters  into  a  long  argument  in  defense  of  the  last  of 
these  reasons.  In  his  later  work  on  the  Divine  Right  of  Excom- 
munication and  Church  Government,  he  again  (pp.  432,  434)  ex- 
presses his  adherence  to  this  interpretation  of  the  text,  and  refers 
to  what  he  had  previously  said  in  support  of  it. 

8.  CXI.  Propositions  concerning  the  Ministry  and  Government 
of  the  Church,  by  George  Gillespie.  "  This  ecclesiastical  govern- 
ment, distinct  from  the  civil,  is  from  God  committed,  not  to  the 
whole  body  of  the  Church  or  congregation  of  the  faithful,  or  to  be 
exercised  both  by  officers  and  people,  but  to  the  ministers  of  God's 
word,  together  with  the  elders  which  are  joined  with  them  for  the 
care  and  government  of  the  church. — I  Tim.  v.  17." 

9.  Christian  Concord  or  Agreement  of  the  Associated  Churches 


5o8  Appendix, 

and  Pastors  of  Worcestershire. — Baxter's  own  opinions  are  well 
known  ;  and  therefore  it  is  the  stronger  proof  that  there  were  those 
even  in  that  district  who  held  the  presbyter  theory  of  the  elder's 
office,  that  he  should  have  found  it  necessary  to  express  himself  in 
the  following  tolerant  terms : — "  It  having  been  the  custom  of  the 
church  in  the  Apostles'  day  to  have  ordinarily  many  officers  in  a 
church,  ...  we  therefore  judge  it  needful  to  use  all  lawful 
means  to  procure  more  ministers  or  elders  than  one  in  each 
church,  even  proportionally  to  the  number  of  souls,  and  if  not 
learned  men  and  supported  by  the  public  maintenance,  then  less 
learned  laboring  at  their  callings,  and  taking  private  duties  of  the 
pastorate,  and  as  long  as  we  agree  that  these  elders  are  ordained 
church  officers,  and  what  shall  be  their  work,  there  need  be  no 
breach  among  us,  though  7ue  determine  not  of  their  po7ver  in  sac- 
raments, and  tvhether  their  office  be  the  same  %mth  the  teaching 
elders.  Whilst  we  agree  in  practice,  we  may  leave  men's  several 
principles  in  such  a  difficult  controverted  point  to  their  own  judg- 
ment."    See  also  Hatch's  Bamp.  Led.,  pp.  54,  76. 

NOTE  H,  p.  201. 

"  That  the  magistrate  is  not  obliged  to  execute  the  decrees  of 
the  church  without  further  examination,  whether  they  be  right  or 
wrong,  as  the  Papists  teach  that  the  magistrate  is  to  execute  the 
decrees  of  their  Popish  councils  with  a  blind  obedience  ...  is  clear. 
1st.  Because  if,  in  hearing  the  word,  all  should  follow  the  example 
of  the  men  of  Berea,  ...  try  whether  that  which  concerneth  their 
conscience  be  agreeable  to  the  Scriptures  or  no,  and  accordingly 
receive  or  reject ;  so  in  all  things  of  discipline,  the  magistrate  is 
to  try  by  the  word  whether  he  ought  to  add  his  sanction  to  those 
decrees  which  the  church  gives  out  for  edification.  ...  2d.  The 
magistrate  and  all  men  have  a  command  to  try  all  things,  ergo,  to 
try  the  decrees  of  the  church.  .  .  .  3d.  We  behoved  [otherwise] 
to  lay  down  this  Popish  ground,  that  the  church  cannot  err  in  their 
decrees.  .  .  .  Whoever  impute  this  to  us  who  have  suffered  for 
nonconformity,  and,  upon  this  ground  that  synods  can  err,  refused 
the  ceremonies,  are  to  consult  with  their  own  conscience  whether 
this  be  not  to  make  us  appear  disloyal  and  odious  to  magistracy 
in  that  which  we  never  thought,  far  less  presumed  to  teach  and 
profess  it  to  the  world." — Rutherfurd's  Divine  Right  of  Church 
Governinent  and  Excommunication,  pp.  596,  597.  Even  more  note- 
worthy ax-e  the  utterances  of  Gillespie,  when  striving  to  vindicate: 


Appe7idix.  509 

against  the  reasonings  and  gibes  of  the  Erastians,  that  more  free 
and  independent  government  of  the  church  from  which  they 
feared  so  many  evils  and  oppressions.  '*  I  dare  confidently  say,'" 
he  affirms,  "  that,  if  comparisons  be  rightly  made,  jiresbyterial 
government  is  the  most  limited  and  least  arbitrary  government 
of  any  in  the  world."  And  after  entering  into  details  to  make 
good  this  affirmation  as  regards  the  Papal  and  Prelatical  forms 
of  government,  he  proceeds  to  maintain  that  Independents  must 
needs  be  supposed  to  exercise  much  more  arbitrary  and  un- 
limited power  than  the  Presbyterians  do,  because  they  exempt 
individual  congregations  from  all  control  and  correction  by 
superior  courts,  and  because  one  of  their  three  grand  principles 
"  disclaimeth  that  binding  of  themselves  for  the  future,  unto  their 
present  judgfuent  and  practice,  and  avoucheth  the  keeping  of  this 
reserve  to  alter  and  retract.  By  which  it  appeareth  that  their  way 
will  not  suffer  them  to  be  so  far  .  .  .  bounded  within  certain 
particular  rules  (I  say  not  with  others  but  even  among  themselves) 
as  the  Presbyterian  way  will  admit  of."  He  denies  that,  in  claiming 
a  distinct  government  for  the  church,  the  Presbyterians  meant  to 
deprive  the  Christian  magistrate  of  that  power  and  authority  in 
matters  of  religion  which  the  word  of  God  and  the  Confessions  of 
the  Reformed  Churches  recognized  as  belonging  to  him.  On  the 
contrary,  he  maintains  that  not  only  in  extraordinary  cases,  "  when 
church-government  doth  degenerate  into  tyranny,  ambition,  and 
avarice,"  or  those  who  manage  it  make  defection  from  the  truth, 
the  Christian  magistrate  may,  and  ought  to  "  do  divers  things  in 
and  for  religion,  and  interpose  his  authority  divers  ways,  so  as 
doth  not  properly  belong  to  his  cognizance,  decision,  and  adminis- 
tration ordinarily,"  and  in  a  well-constituted  church ;  but  also  that 
in  ordinary  cases  he  is  free  to  act  as  his  own  conscience  directs,  in 
giving  or  refusing  his  sanction  to  the  discipline  of  the  church,  and 
that  if  he  is  offended  at  any  sentence  given  by  its  courts,  they 
ought  to  be  ready  to  give  him  an  account  of  their  proceedings,  and 
by  all  means  to  endeavor  to  satisfy  his  conscience,  or  otherwise 
to  be  warned  or  rectified  if  themselves  have  erred. — Gillespie's 
Aaron's  J^od  Blossoming,  etc.,  Bk.  ii.  ch.  iii. 

NOTE  I,  p.  217. 
Professor  Masson  has  frankly  admitted   that   the   Church  of 
England  was  more  tolerant  than  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  Scottish 
Presbyterianism  or  Scottish  Paritanism  was  more  tolerant  (though 


5 1  o  Appendix. 

the  reverse  is  usually  asserted)  than  the  Church  of  England  prior 
to  1640;  he  might  have  added,  prior  to  1688,  whatever  may  have 
been  the  theoretical  sentiments  of  Jeremy  Taylor.  The  ordinance 
against  blasphemies  and  heresies,  harsh  and  cruel  as  it  seems  to 
us,  was  not  a  tightening,  but  a  relaxation,  of  the  old  law,  and  the 
restraint  without  law  formerly  practised,  but  put  in  temporary 
abeyance,  by  the  abolition  of  the  Court  of  High  Commission,  and 
of  the  office  of  bishop.  Offenders  were  no  longer  to  be  punishable 
for  opinions  held,  but  for  opinions  deliberately  expressed.  They 
were  not  obliged  to  clear  themselves  by  oath  as  in  the  Court  of 
High  Commission,  but  must  be  convicted  by  the  testimony  of  two 
credible  witnesses,  or  by  their  own  voluntary  confession.  The 
charge  must  be  prosecuted  and  proved  in  the  civil  courts  within  a 
limited  time,  and,  as  I  take  it,  at  least  in  graver  cases,  before  a 
jury.  Cromwell  himself,  when  at  the  height  of  his  power  deemed 
it  necessary  to  set  limits  to  toleration  and  the  freedom  of  church 
courts  ;  and  even  when  the  Toleration  Act  was  passed  at  the 
Revolution  it  was  so,  not  in  general  or  latitudinarian  terms,  but 
to  the  definite  and  limited  extent  required  to  meet  the  cases  of 
the  Puritans,  the  Baptists,  and  the  Quakers.  King  William  HI., 
though  probably  as  wise  a  monarch  as  ever  sat  on  the  throne  of 
Britain,  gave  his  assent  to  an  Act  for  suppressing  blasphemy  and 
profaneness,  by  which  it  was  provided  that  if  any  persons  having 
been  educated  in,  or  any  lime  having  made  profession  of,  the 
Christian  religion  within  this  realm,  should  by  writing,  print- 
ing, teaching,  or  advised  speaking,  deny  any  one  of  the  Persons  in 
the  Holy  Trinity  to  be  God,  or  should  assert  or  maintain  there  are 
more  Gods  than  one,  or  should  deny  the  Christian  religion  to 
be  true,  or  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  to  be  of 
divine  authority,  he  should  the  first  time  be  subject  to  severe  legal 
disabilities,  and  the  second  should  suffer  imprisonment  for  three 
years.  Tillotson's  successor  in  the  see  of  Canterbury  wrote  in 
support  of  these  Acts  and  the  king's  injunctions.  The  melancholy 
words  of  Rutherfurd  so  often  quoted,  were  but  the  echo  of  those  of 
the  judicious  Hooker  (Bk.  viii.)  that  in  matters  of  faith,  "  law 
should  set  down  a  certainty  which  no  man  afterwards  is  to  gainsay." 
The  more  melancholy  words  of  the  Lancashire  ministers,  that 
such  a  toleration  as  the  sectaries  then  demanded  "  would  be  the 
putting  of  a  sword  into  a  madman's  hand,  a  cup  of  poison  into 
the  hand  of  a  child,  a  letting  loose  of  madmen  with  firebrands 
in  their  hands ;   an  appointing  of  a  city  of  refuge  in  men's  con- 


Appendix,  5 1 1 


sciences  for  the  devil  to  fly  to,  a  laying  of  a  stumbling-block  before 
the  blind,  a  proclaiming  liberty  to  the  wolves  to  come  into  Christ's 
fold  to  prey  upon  the  lambs,"  etc.,  were  but  the  rhetorical  concen- 
tration of  various  utterances  of  the  gentle  Burroughs,  cropping  up 
here  and  there  in  his  treatise  on  Heart  Divisions  :  "  If  there  were 
a  company  of  madmen  running  up  and  down  the  streets  with  knives 
and  swords  in  their  hands,  .  .  .  must  we  do  nothing  to  restrain 
them  ?  The  devil  must  not  be  let  alone  though  he  get  into  men's 
consciences.  God  hath  appointed  no  city  of  refuge  for  him ;  if  he 
flee  to  men's  consciences  as  Joab  to  the  horns  of  the  altar,  he  must 
be  fetched  from  thence,  or  fallen  upon  there."  Nay,  the  more 
clear-headed  Owen,  in  a  sermon  preached  before  Cromwell's  Par- 
liament in  1652,  is  found  thus  indoctrinating  them:  "  Know  that 
error  and  falsehood  have  no  right  or  title  from  God  or  man  unto 
any  privilege,  protection,  advantage,  liberty,  or  any  good  thing  you 
are  entrusted  withal :  to  dispose  that  unto  a  lie,  which  is  the  right 
of  and  due  to  truth,  is  to  deal  treacherously  with  Him  by  whom 
you  are  employed ;  all  the  tenderness  and  forbearance  unto  such 
persons  as  are  infected  with  such  abominations  is  solely  upon  a 
civil  account,  and  that  plea  which  they  have  for  tranquillity  whilst 
neither  directly  nor  morally  they  are  a  disturbance  unto  others," — 
that  is,  as  even  the  Lancashire  ministers  admitted,  they  are  not  to 
be  disturbed  so  long  as  they  keep  their  opinions  to  themselves,  but 
they  have  no  right  to  propagate  them  at  their  pleasure.^  So  much 
of  matters  of  opinion  or  belief.  As  to  matters  of  practice,  he  con- 
tinues :  "  Know  that  in  things  of  practice  as  of  persuasion,  that  are 

i  According  to  Baxter,  Owen.  Goodwin,  Simpson,  and  Nye  were  chiefly 
concerned  in  drawing  up  the  list  of  Fundamentals  which  the  Parliament  of 
1654  wished  to  impose  on  all  who  claimed  toleration.  Neal  (vol.  iv.  pp.  98- 
100)  gives  sixteen  of  them.  The  Journal  of  the  House  of  Commons  speaks 
of  twenty,  but  inserts  only  the  first — on  Holy  Scripture — which  alone  had 
been  passed  when  Cromwell  dissolved  the  Parliament,  and  in  considerably 
longer  form  than  the  Committee  had  proposed  : — 

That  the  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  That   the    Holy  Scripture  is   that 

Old   and    New    lestaments    are    the      rule  of  knowing  God  and  living  unto 
Word  of  God   and  the   only  rule  of      Him,  which  whoso   does  not  believe 
knowing  him  savingly  and  living  unto      cannot  be  saved, 
him  in  all  holiness  and  righteousne.ss 
in  which  we  must  rest ;  which  Scrip- 
tures whoso  doth  not  believe,  but,  re- 
jecting them,  doth,  instead  thereof, 
betake  himself  to  any  other  way  of 
discovering  the  mind  of  God,  cannot 
be  saved. 


5 1 2  Appe7idix. 

impious  and  wicked  either  in  themselves  or  in  their  natural  and 
unconstrained  consequences,  the  plea  of  conscience  is  an  aggrava- 
tion of  the  crime ;  if  men's  consciences  are  seared  and  themselves 
given  up  to  a  reprobate  mind  to  do  those  things  that  are  not  con- 
venient, there  is  no  doubt  but  they  ought  to  suffer  sucli  things  as 
to  such  practices  are  assigned  and  appointed."  But  perhaps  the 
strangest  of  all  the  strange  utterances  on  this  subject  is  that  con- 
tained in  a  pamphlet  published  at  London  in  1652,  and  entitled 
The  Key  of  Trtie  Policy  or  a  Free  Dispute  concerning  the  conser- 
vation of  lately  obtained  libej-ty.  It  professes  to  be  the  production 
of  a  Scotchman,  but  apparently  of  one  who  had  espoused  Repul> 
lican  principles,  who  boldly  adopts  the  line  of  argument  which  an 
able  reviewer  in  our  own  day  has  attributed  to  the  Presbyterians 
and  the  majority  of  the  Long  Parliament.  It  is  thus  he  argues 
(p.  9)  :  *'  It  is  an  old  maxim  in  philosophy,  Sublata  causa  tollitur 
effectus.  And  consequently  such  unprofitable  and  noisome  mem- 
bers being  put  aside  one  way  or  other,  it  removeth  the  non-secur- 
ity and  danger  obtained  liberty  is  exposed  to.  Will  you  tell  me, 
is  he  not  a  desperate  and  unskilful  physician  who  will  take  it  on 
him  to  cure  the  body  and  not  remove  the  cause  of  the  disease? 
That  verily  is  to  build  with  a  foundation.  What  madness  is  it  to 
go  about  to  secure  purchased  liberty,  and  not  remove  the  cause 
of  its  non-security  I  Truly  it  is  so  much,  as  to  keep  fire  in  the 
bosom,  and  not  to  be  burned,  to  touch  pitch  and  not  be  defiled,  to 
keep  the  thief  in  the  house  and  the  throat  not  to  be  cut,  and  to 
keep  a  viper  in  the  bosom  and  not  to  be  stinged.  Oh  !  shall 
liberty  be  preserved  as  long  as  its  enemies  are  free  ?  No,  verily. 
They  will  be  still  conspiring  and  taking  crafty  counsel  against  it. 
So  long  as  the  son  of  Jesse  liveth  they  will  never  think  them- 
selves secure,  and  that  their  kingdom  shall  be  established.  And 
therefore,  Saul-like,  they  will  still  fall  a-persecuting  David. 
Nay,  let  me  tell  you,  those  become  accessory  to  their  own  hurt 
and  rnin,  who  ivould  not  destroy  the  destroyers  of  their  liberties. 
Thus  they  become  negative  cut-throats  and  burrios  to  them- 
selves. But  to  prevent  bondage  and  slavery,  it  is  good,  it 
is  good  to  root  out  those  who  go  about  to  destroy  our  liberty. 
Otherwise  we  abuse  the  power  God  and  nature  have  con- 
ferred on  us  to  maintain  and  defend  our  own  liberties  against 
our  adversaries."  He  then  proceeds  to  offer  his  judgment  in 
particulars  as  follows : — *' ist.  All  malignant  and  formal  Presby- 
terian incendiaries  should  one  way  or  other  be  rooted  out  if  we 


Appendix.  5 1 3 

mind  to  maintain  our  own  1  liberties  inviolable.  This  is  evident 
from  what  is  already  said,  for  they  are  the  very  enemies  by  whom 
the  Lord's  people  m  the  three  nations  only  stand  in  hazard.  They 
indeed  are  the  Canaanites  whom  the  Lord  hath  commissioned  to 
destroy.  They  verily  are  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  and  there- 
fore must  be  rooted  out.  .  .  .  They  are  bears  robbed  of  their 
whelps,  and  therefore  they  will  never  be  satisfied  till  they  be 
destroyed.  They  are  Atnalek  indeed,  they  lay  in  wait,  while  as 
the  Lord's  people  in  Britain  came  out  of  the  spiritual  Egypt  from 
under  the  Episcopal  and  Malignant  yoke,  And  therefore  (heirnajne 
deserveth  to  be  razed  from  under  heaven.  2.  Albeit  all  such  should 
be  rooted  out  and  destroyed,  yet  not  one  and  the  same  way.  They 
should  be  dealt  with  according  to  their  guilt.  Some  of  them  who 
are  prime  incendiaries  and  leading  men  should  be  finally  cut  off. 
Others  again  of  them  who  are  not  so  deep  in  the  guilt,  deserve  not 
physically  but  politically  to  be  cut  off,  i.  e.  (as  Artaxerxes  saith, 
Ezra  V.  26)  either  by  banishment  or  imprisonment,  or  confiscation 
of  goods,  according  to  their  desert."  To  the  objection  that  this 
would  make  a  pretty  clean  sweep  in  Scotland  where  such  men  were 
the  more  numerous  party,  and  where  few  or  none  even  of  the 
"  godly  "  were  for  the  English  interest,  and  where  their  action  could 
not  be  said  to  be  illegal  even  when  it  was  hostile,  the  author 
replies  (p.  21) :  "  If  the  Parliament  of  England  look  not  more  to 
conscience  and  duty  than  quirks  and  law  formality,  they  will  be 
forced  to  condemn  the  best  and  weightiest  of  all  their  proceedings. 
I  wonder  if  law-quirks  taught  a  handful  of  godly  men  in  the  nation 
to  turn  a  king  off  his  throne,  to  cut  off  his  head,  to  banish  his  son, 
to  cut  off  the  peers  of  the  land,  to  turn  out  betrayers  of  their  trusts 
and  such  like  ?  I  trow  not ;  I  believe  duty  only  led  them  on  to 
such  things.  Oh  !  shall  not  duty  as  yet  lead  them  on  to  proceed 
against  their  and  our  implicable  enemies  ?  .  .  .  Hath  he  not 
rented  the  kingdom  from  Saul  for  sparing  Agag,  and  given  it  to 
them  ?  Will  they  spare  him  too  ?  No,  I  hope,  as  Samuel,  they 
will  hew  him  in  pieces.  The  Lord  put  it  in  their  hearts  so  to  do." 
This  is  the  only  pamphlet  of  the  period  in  which  I  remember  to 
have  met  with  this  famous  simile.  It  proceeded  not  from  sober- 
minded  Puritan  in  time  of  peace,  nor  from  maddened  Covenanter 
in  the  day  of  sore  distress,  but  from  a  fanatic  sectary  or  rabid 
Protestor  in  the  day  of  his  triumph,  and  was  adduced  to  encourage 
harsh  measures,  not  against  Papists  and  Prelatists,  but  against 
the  Presbyterians,  his  fellow-countrymen  and  fellow-covenanters. 
33 


5 1 4  Appendix, 

They,  in  his  eyes,  were  the  Canaanites,  the  Amalekites,  the  Am- 
monites, the  Joab  and  Shiniei,  whom  King  Solomon  was  to  cut 
off, — nay,  apparently  the  Saul  who  spared  Agag  and  the  Agag  who 
was  spared  rolled  into  one.  No  comment  on  this  production 
could  well  be  more  cutting  than  that  which  I  find  written  in  an 
old  hand  on  the  copy  of  it  now  before  me  : — 

"  To  hang  all  Scots,  the  doom  is  sad ; 

Better  it  were  to  hang  the  dog  that's  mad." 


NOTE  K,  p.  265. 

1.  Act  of  General  Assembly  approving  the  Propositions  con- 
cerning Kirk  Government  and  Ordination  of  Ministers — "  .  .  . 
And  now  the  Assembly  having  thrice  read  and  diligently  examined 
the  Propositions  (hereunto  annexed)  concerning  the  officers,  as- 
semblies, and  government  of  the  Kirk,  and  concerning  the  ordi- 
nation of  ministers  brought  unto  us  as  the  results  of  the  long  and 
learned  debates  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines  sitting  at  Westminster, 
and  of  the  Treaty  of  Uniformity  with  the  Commissioners  of  this 
Kirk  there  residing  :  after  mature  deliberation,  .  .  .  doth  agree  to 
and  approve  the  Propositions  aforementioned,  touching  Kirk  gov- 
ernment and  ordination,  and  doth  hereby  authorize  the  Commis- 
sioners of  this  Assembly  who  are  to  meet  at  Edinburgh  to  agree 
to  and  conclude  in  the  name  of  this  Assemblie,  an  uniformity 
betwixt  the  Kirks  of  both  kingdoms  in  the  aforementioned 
particulars,  so  soon  as  the  same  shall  be  ratified  without  any 
substantial  alteration  by  an  Ordinance  of  the  Honorable  Houses 
of  the  Parliament  of  England."  The  Assembly  excepted  from 
their  Act,  and  reserved  the  liberty  of  further  discussion,  respecting 
the  right  of  the  doctor  to  administer  the  sacraments  and  the 
respective  rights  of  presbyteries  and  people  in  the  calling  of 
ministers. 

2.  Extract  from  Act  approving  of  the  Confession  of  Faith. — 
"  But  lest  our  intention  and  meaning  be  in  some  particulars  mis- 
understood, it  is  hereby  expressly  declared  and  provided  that  the 
not  mentioning  in  this  Confession  the  several  sorts  of  ecclesiastical 
officers  and  assemblies  shall  be  no  prejudice  to  the  truth  of  Christ 
in  these  particulars  to  be  expressed  fully  in  the  Directory  of 
government." 

3.  Ratification   of  the  Propositions  for   Church   Government, 


Appendix.  515 

Ordination  of  Ministers,  and  of  the  Act  of  Assevibly  thereanent. 
— "  The  Estates  of  Parliament  now  convened  in  the  second  session 
of  this  first  Triennial  Parliament,  by  virtue  of  the  last  Act  of  the 
last  Parliament,  holden  by  his  Majesty  and  three  Estates  in  Anno 
1641,  after  public  reading  of  the  following  propositions  con- 
cerning Kirk  government  and  ordination  of  ministers,  together 
with  the  Act  of  General  Assembly  approving  the  same,  DO  UNANI- 
MOUSLY ratify  and  approve  the  said  Propositions  according  to  the 
said  Act  of  General  Assembly,  to  the  which  Act  the  Estates  do 
hereby  add  the  authority  of  Parliament,  and  ordaine  the  same  to 
have  the  strength  and  force  of  a  law  in  all  time  coming."  This 
Act  was  not  contained  in  former  collections  of  the  Scotch  Acts, 
nor  printed  till  the  original  register  of  the  Parliament  of  1 645  was 
discovered  a  short  time  ago,  and  printed  in  full  in  the  last  edition 
of  vol.  vi,  of  Thomson's  Acts  of  the  Scottish  Parliament. 

NOTE  L,  p.  343.— Calvin's  Relation  to  English 
Reformers. 
A  vast  amount  of  unchristian  temper  and  unseemly  bitterness 
has  been  expended  on  the  discussion  of  this  question,  and  the 
reformer  of  Geneva  in  particular  has  been  loaded  with  an  amount 
of  abuse  and  misrepresentation  more  than  sufficient  to  save  him 
for  ever  from  the  woe  denounced  against  those  of  whom  all  men 
speak  well.  Fed  sis  tiia  sorte  contentus,  O  magne  Calvine  !  One 
must  reap  the  impassioned  diatribes  which  were  fashionable  sixty 
or  eighty  years  ago,  to  be  able  to  understand  the  noble  courage 
and  candor  of  Bishop  Horsley  when  he  uttered  the  words, 
"  I  hold  the  memory  of  Calvin  in  high  veneration ;  his  works 
have  a  place  in  my  library,  and  in  the  study  of  the  Scriptures 
he  is  one  of  the  commentators  I  frequently  consult."  And  one 
cannot  but  rejoice  that  in  our  own  day  Dean  Perowne  has 
expressed  himself  in  still  stronger  terms.  It  would  require  not  a 
note  or  even  a  lecture,  but  a  volume,  to  deal  with  these  mis- 
representations in  detail,  and  that  may  safely  be  left  to  some 
true-hearted  successor  of  Toplady,  or  Thomas  Scott,  or  Bishoji 
Waldegrave,  who  still  deems  it  the  highest  commendation  of  his 
Church  that  she  is  one  of  the  fairest  daughters  of  the  Reformation. 
All  that  I  feel  called  to  do  is  to  put  in  a  demurrer  to  such  mis- 
representations, and  to  state  briefly  two  or  three  pleas  in  support 
of  it.    It  is  said  the  XVIIth  Article  cannot  be  meant  of  a  decrdion 


5 1 6  Appendix. 

absolntum  of  a  predestination  in  the  Augustinian  or  in  the  Calvin- 
istic  sense,  but  in  that  of  the  later  Lutherans  or  Arminians,  for 
it  was  with  the  Lutherans  that  the  English  Reformers  were 
specially  intimate,  and  from  them,  or  through  them,  that  some 
of  their  offices  and  several  of  their  Articles  came  to  them.  One 
may  leave  on  one  side  the  offices  with  the  remark  that,  so  far  as 
they  came  from  the  Nuremberg  Liturgy,  they  came  through  the 
Consiiltatio  of  Herman,  Archbishop  of  Cologne.  In  the  prepara- 
tion of  that  Bucer  was  quite  as  much  concerned  as  Melanchthon, 
and  Bucer  was  a  predestinarian  of  the  Augustinian  school,  who 
probably  would  have  considered  himself  entitled  to  harmonize  his 
views  on  baptismal  regeneration  with  his  views  on  predestination 
in  the  same  way  as  Bishop  Carleton  and  others  did  in  the  next 
century,'  and  Mr.  Gorham  in  the  nineteenth.  If  any  parts  of  the 
Burial  Service  came  through  Lutheran  formularies,  they  came  from 
ancient  Western  sources,  reaching  back  to  a  time  when  Augus- 
tinianism,  which  affirmed  the  perseverance  of  all  the  predestinate, 
but  not  of  all  the  regenerate,  was  the  prevailing  faith  of  the  Western 
Church.  With  respect  to  doctrinal  formularies,  even  if  one  were 
to  grant  all  that  has  been  advanced  as  to  the  close  connection  of 
the  English  Reformers  with  the  Lutherans  and  their  less  close 
connection  with  Calvin  and  the  Swiss,  it  would  still  remain  to  be 
pointed  out — \st,  That  at  the  time  the  Augsburg  Confession  was 
composed,  Melanchthon,  as  well  as  Luther,  was  still  Augustinian, 
and  that  good  authorities  in  our  own  day  affirm  that  Luther 
remained  so  to  the  last,  as  did  Flacius  Illyricus,  Schnepff, 
Heshusius,  and  some  others  of  his  followers.  2d,  That  Brentz, 
who  had  the  chief  hand  in  drawing  up  the  Wiirtemberg  Confession 
(which  in  several  articles  seems  in  1563  to  have  been  followed 
by  the  English),  though  not  a  pronounced  Augustinian  himself, 
framed  it  when  doing  his  utmost  to  preserve  a  good  understanding 
with  the  more  moderate  of  the  Reformed,  especially  with  Bucer 
and  Martyr,  and  with  others  of  their  school  still  remaining  at 
Strasburg;  that  his  confession  was  accepted  by  that  free  city, 
and  that  it  was  probably  from  thence,  through  Jewell,  it  found  its 
way  into  England  before  1563.  John  ab  Ulmis  had  been  employed 
to  translate  a  Strasburg  Confession  into  Latin  for  Cranmer.  yi. 
That  it  is  only  in  Articles  as  to  which  Lutherans  and  Reformed 
were  agreed,  that  a  real  similarity  can  be  traced  between  the  Edward- 
ian Articles  and  the  Augsburg  or  the  early  German  Confessions. 
1  Examination  of  an  Appeal  to  Ccesar,  pp.  96,  97. 


Appendix.  5 1 7 

None  of  these  have  an  article  on  predestination,  nor  does  any 
other  Lutlieran  Confession,  as  Dr.  Dorner  tells  us,  have  it.  Nor 
can  any  such  marked  similarity  be  traced  between  this  Article  and 
any  of  the  definitions  of  Melanchthon  or  of  any  Lutheran  doctor 
of  the  Synergistic  school.  The  only  resemblance  traceable  is  to 
certain  expressions  in  the  treatise  of  Luther  on  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  and  that,  as  already  stated,  was  written  while  he  was  still 
a  pronounced  Augustinian,  and  teaches  distinctly  the  Augustinian 
or  predestinarian  view. 

But  it  cannot  be  granted  that  the  intimacy  between  the  English 
and  the  Swiss  Reformers  was  only  formed  during  the  later  Marian 
times.  Had  the  English  exiles  been  regarded  as  Lutherans  when 
driven  from  their  own  country,  they  would  have  been  received 
with  open  arms  by  their  co-religionists  in  Germany.  But  the  very 
reverse  was  the  fact.  The  strict  Lutherans  afforded  them  no 
shelter,  showed  them  but  little  kindness,  and  were  not  appealed  to 
in  their  differences.  We  do  not  find  even  the  gentle  Melanchthon 
specially  exerting  himself  in  their  behalf,  nor  them  resorting  to 
him  for  counsel.  Nor  was  it  to  him  that  the  thoughts  of  those  in 
prison  in  England  turned.  Hooper's  recourse  was  still  to  his  old 
friend  Bullinger,  and  the  one  letter  Cranmer  is  known  to  have 
written  from  his  prison  was  addressed  to  his  old  and  much  trusted 
friend  Martyr.  Even  in  1551-52,  it  was  not  to  Melanchthon,  but 
to  Bullinger,  that  those  who  were  exercised  about  predestination, 
and  desired  further  counsel  than  the  writings  of  Calvin  and  the 
teaching  of  Martyr  supplied,  were  disposed  to  turn.  Traheron  or 
Trehern,  tutor  to  the  young  Duke  of  Suffolk,  the  intimate  friend 
and  associate  of  Cheke,  the  young  King's  tutor,  and,  like  him,  a 
member  of  the  sub-committee  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Commission, 
wrote  to  Bullinger  on  the  question  in  the  following  terms: — 
"  There  are  certain  individuals  here  who  lived  among  you  some 
time,  and  who  assert  that  you  lean  too  much  to  Melanchthon's 
views.  But  the  greater  number  among  us  [pliirimi),  of  whom  I 
own  myself  to  be  one,  embrace  the  opbiion  of  John  Calvin  as  being 
perspicuous  and  most  agreeable  to  holy  Scripture."  Then  after 
thanking  God  that  Calvin's  treatise  against  Pighius  on  this  question 
had  appeared  at  the  very  time  when  it  had  begun  to  be  agitated 
among  them,  he  adds : — "  We  confess  that  he  has  thrown  much 
light  upon  the  subject,  or  rather  so  handled  it  as  that  we  have 
never  before  seen  anything  more  learned  or  more  plain."  Bullinger, 
some  time  before,  had  concluded  with  Calvin  and  the  Genevese  a 


5 1 8  Appendix. 

consensus  on  the  subject  of  the  sacraments,  in  the  XVIth  Article  of 
which  the  topic  of  election  was  touched  on,  but,  though  it  was  so 
in  the  most  guarded  terms,  its  bearing  was  so  olivious  that  Melanch- 
thon  is  said  "  confodisse  eum  ariiculu/n  "  in  the  copy  sent  him.  In 
the  letter  Bullinger  sent  to  Traheron  he  states,  even  more  decisively 
that  in  the  consensus,  that  faith  foreseen  is  not  the  cause,  but  the 
consequence  of  election,  though  still  refusing  to  follow  Calvin  in 
his  teaching  on  the  subject  of  reprobation  :  "  Electionis  et  prsedes- 
tinationis  causa  non  est  alia  quam  bona  et  justa  Dei  voluntas  inde- 
bite  salvantis  eleclos  debite  autem  damnantis  .  .  reprobos."  "  In- 
terim fidem  ceu  opus  nostrum  non  constituimus  causam  electionis 
quasi  propter  fidem  quam  in  nobis  prcevidii  Detis  nos  elegerit  sed 
gratiae  Dei  tribuimus  electionem  et  salutem  .  .  .  Etenim  Paulus 
non  dicit  Deum  elegisse  nos  quod  credituri  eramus  sed  ut  crede- 
remus ;  unde  et  Augustinus  sumpsisse  videtur  quod  dixit,  Non 
quia  credimus  ipse  nos  elegit  sed  ut  credamus  ne  priores  videamus 
ipsum  elegisse."  This  letter,  Avrilten  in  March  1 553,  can  hardly 
have  arrived  in  England  in  time  to  be  used  in  the  framing  of  the 
XVI Ith  Article.  It  was  not  altogether  to  the  mind  of  Traheron 
and  those  who  thought  with  him,  as  appears  by  his  reply,  which, 
as  well  as  his  previous  letter,  is  given  at  length  among  the  Parker 
Society's  original  letters  relating  to  the  English  Reformation  (pp. 
324-328).  But  it  really  concedes  almost  all  that  is  maintained  as 
dogma  in  the  Confessions  of  the  Reformed  Churches,  even  those 
of  them  composed  or  approved  by  Calvin,  though  not  all  that  he, 
Bucer,  Beza,  Martyr,  and  Knox  deemed  themselves  warranted  as 
private  doctors  to  inculcate.  So  much  importance  was  attached 
to  it  by  Bullinger,  that  he  had  copies  of  it,  evidently  meant  to  be 
shown  to  others,  sent  to  Hooper  and  to  Martyr,  who  in  reply  in- 
formed him  that,  though  not  agreeing  with  him  altogether,  he  had 
been  especially  on  his  guard  in  treating  on  that  subject,  "  lest  men 
should  cast  all  their  faults  and  sins  upon  God,  or  derive  from  the 
will  of  God  an  excuse  for  their  wickedness,"  as  would  appear 
when  his  commentaries  on  the  Romans  were  published,  as  he 
hoped  they  would  be  that  same  year.  "  May  God,"  he  adds, 
"  grant  us  all  so  to  feel  respecting  predestination,  that  what  ought 
to  be  the  greatest  consolation  to  believers  may  not  become  the 
painful  subject  of  pernicious  contention." 

Neither  was  Calvin  himself  so  little  known  nor  so  lightly 
esteemed  in  England  at  that  time  as  some  have  represented.  He 
was  in  high  repute  with  the  young  King,  the  Protector,  and  several 


Appendix,  519 


of  the  reforming;  nobles,  with  Chcke  the  King's  tutor,  and  Traheron, 
as  well  as  with  Knox,  Martyr,  i  Lasco,  and  the  other  foreigners 
then  helping  on  the  work  in  England.  Bishop  Coverdale,  when 
in  exile,  had  translated  from  the  Latin  his  treatise  on  the  Lord's 
Supper,  which  had  commended  his  views  on  that  subject  to  favor 
and  acceptance,  just  as,  we  known  from  Traheron,  his  treatises  on 
predestination  were  commending  to  favor  his  views  on  the  only 
other  subject  then  occasioning  difference  between  the  Lutherans 
and  the  Reformed.  The  treatise  in  answer  to  Pighius,  which  was 
published  in  the  very  beginning  of  1552,  is  the  one  specially 
referred  to  by  him,  but  that  was  not  the  first  in  which  he  had 
handled  this  subject,  nor  the  first  which  had  reached  England. 
His  commentary  on  the  Romans,  which  was  published  in  1539, 
was  well  known,  and  in  it  he  had  treated  on  predestination  in  the 
same  spirit  as  Martyr  subsequently  did.  His  Institutions  were  not 
unknown,  and  in  the  second  edition  of  that  work,  issued  in  1539, 
a  distinct  chapter  was  assigned  to  this  subject,  which  in  the  fifth 
edition,  issued  in  1550,  was  further  enlarged,  and  so  much  run  on 
that,  without  the  author's  consent,  it  was  published  separately  the 
same  year.  It  is  not  unusual  yet  to  represent  Cranmer  as  by  no 
means  on  the  most  friendly  footing  with  Calvin,  and  but  half- 
reluctantly  inviting  him  to  that  great  council  of  the  chief  Reformers 
which  he  was  so  desirous  to  assemble.  It  is  also  represented  that 
the  main,  if  not  the  only  object  that  council  was  intended  to 
accomplish,  was  to  heal  the  divisions  that  had  arisen  among  Pro- 
testants on  the  subject  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  But  the  letters  of 
the  Primate,  and  none  of  them  more  decisively  than  his  letter  to 
Melanchthon  himself,  show  that  the  Confession,  or  consensus,  was 
meant  to  embrace  the  whole  circle  of  Christian  doctrine.  Strype 
expressly  includes  the  question  of  predestination  among  others. 
When  obliged  reluctantly  to  abandon  or  postpone  his  grander 
scheme,  he  intimated  his  intention  to  press  on  without  further 
delay  the  lesser  one  of  preparing  such  a  confession  for  his 
own  Church,  and  strenuously  proceeding  in  the  reformation  of 
manners  as  well  as  doctrine.  This  he  did  in  a  letter  to  the  much 
maligned  Calvin,  who  had  shown  himself  more  ready  to  second 
his  efforts  for  the  council,  as  well  as  for  a  closer  civil  league  among 
Protestant  States,  than  either  Bullinger  or  Melanchthon  had  ven- 
tured to  do.  This  letter,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  only  been  recovered 
in  our  own  day,  and  printed  by  the  vStrasburg  theologians  who  are 
re-editing  the  works  of  Calvin  with  such  loving  care.    For  English- 


5  20  Appendix. 

speaking  churches,  no  more  vahiable  addition  has  for  long  been 
made  to  our  knowledge  of  the  esteem  in  which  he  was  really  held 
by  those  who  were  engaged  in  the  noble  enterprise  of  reviving  the 
life  and  restoring  the  purity  of  the  English  Church.  Archbishop 
Laurence  has  much  to  say  of  his  "  bold  temerity,"  and  "  love  of 
hypothesis,"  as  perhaps  exceeding  both  his  piety  and  his  learning, 
and  the  entire  want  of  community  of  spirit  between  him  and  the 
Reformers  of  the  English  Church,  and  what  he  has  said  many 
lesser  men  since  have  repeated  with  still  greater  bitterness  and 
scorn.  Here  is  how  the  honored  primate,  who,  more  than  any 
other,  determined  the  character  of  that  church,  wrote  to  him  in  the 
autumn  of  1 552.  No  more  noble  or  brotherly  letter  ever  went  to 
foreign  Protestant  from  Lambeth  Palace  : — 

"  Et  pietate  et  eruditione  prsestanli  viro  D.  Joanni  Calvino, 
amico  suo  dilecto. — Quod  consilium  raeum  laudas  de  conventu 
doctissimorum  et  optimorum  virorum  in  Anglia  habendo,  ut 
posteris  traderetur  de  reformatse  doctrinse  capitibus,  juxta  scrip- 
turse  normam  consensus,  et  studium  operamque  tuam  ad  hoc  in- 
stitutum  perficiendum  alacri  animo  offers,  recte  tu  quidem  mea 
sententia  judicasti,  et  ad  Dei  gloriam  propagandam  vohmtatem  te 
habere  propensissimam  non  obscuris  argumentis  declarasti,  Atque 
utimam  daretur  facultas  ad  efifectum  perducendi  hoc  quod  ecclesia; 
tam  utile  judicamus.  Verum  multa  sunt  quae  in  animum  meum 
inducunt  hanc  nostram  deliberationem  irritam  fore :  tum  quod 
D.  Philippus  ad  meas  literas  nihil  hactenus  rescripsit,  tum  quod 
D.  Bullingerus  respondet  se  vereri  ne  frustra  de  convocando  con- 
cilio  deliberemus  hoc  tempore,  in  quo  Germania  bello  sic  divexatur 
ut  neque  sibi  neque  D.  Philippo  consultum  sit  ecclesias  suas 
relinquere.  Quare  haec  consultatio  aut  prorsus  omittenda  aut  in 
aliud  tempus  magis  opportunum  differenda  videtur.  Literim  nos 
ecclesiam  Anglicam  pro  virili  reformabimus  dabimusque  operam 
ut  et  dogmata  et  mores  juxta  sacra  rum  literarum  regulam  corri- 
gantur.  Dominus  Jesus  te  gubernet  et  tueatur  ad  suam  gloriam 
etecclesice  sedificationem.     Vale.     Tuus  quantus  est. — T.  Cant. 

"  Lambethii,  4  Octobris  1552." 

Sir  John  Cheke's  letter,  of  22d  May  1553,  "  Homini  doctissimo 
ac  pientissimo  et  mecum  multis  de  causis  conjunctissimo,"  is  even 
more  laudatory,  and  speaks  of  a  "conjunctio  doctrinae,"  as  well  as 
of  a  "societas  humanitatis  et  ingenii." 


Appendix. 


521 


NOTE  M 

Martyr's    Statements,   etc. 

Nostra  enim  [saciamenta]  ,  .  . 
numero  pauciora  actu  faciliora 
intellectu  augustissima,  obser- 
vatu  castissima  et  significatione 
proestanlissima. — Aiigustinus  ci- 
tatus  in  cofiimentario  Alartyris, 
p.   118. 

Multi  satis  habent  si  contem- 
plati  fuerint,  etc.  [itl  poslea). 
Nemo  enim  sumendo  sacra- 
menta  gratiam  ullam  recipit 
quam  fide  non  percipiat  .  .  . 
neque  vi,  ut  loquuntur,  operis 
operati  quicquam  ex  eis  accedat 
(salutem  afferant)  Vox  ea  pere- 
grina  est  nee  aiuiihir  iisquatn  in 
saeris  Uteris  (123). — Qui  enim 
saciamenta  percipit  vel  digne 
vel  indigne  accedit  :  si  indigne 
nil  habet  nisi  damnum  et  jac- 
turam,  si  digne,  igitur  fide  viva 
qua  percipit  representatum  gra- 
tiam.— 494. 

Neque  tantum  sunt  signa 
nostrarum  actionum  sed  etiam 
promissionis  et  voluntatis  Dei 
ejusque  obsignationes.  Et  Spiri- 
tus  Sanctus  istis  utitur  ad  animos 
nostros  excitandos. — 117. 

Sunt  quidem  et  hi  sacramen- 
torum  fines,  tit  notir  sint  ac 
tessercs  Christiana:  professionis 
et  societatis  sive  firaternitatis  .  .  . 
vera  gratiae  suae  testimonia  et 
sigilla  ut  per  ea  nobis  gratiam 
suam  testetur  Deus,  representet 
atque  obsignet. — Fo7-miila  Con- 
setisus  Ti^ti  rin  i. 


p.  346. 

Anglican  Articles  of  1553. 
Dominus  Noster  Jesus  Christus 
sacramcntis  numero  paucissiniis 
observatu  facillimis  significatione 
proestantissimis  societatem  novi 
populi  colligavit  sicuti  et  bap- 
tismus  et  coena  Domini. 

Sacramenta  non  instituta  sunt 
a  Christo  ut  spectarentur  aut 
circumferuntur,  sed  ut  rite  illis 
uteremur;  et  in  his  duntaxat 
qui  digne  percipiunt,  salutarem 
habent  efiectum,  idque  non  ex 
opere  (ut  quidam  loquuntur) 
operato,  quae  vox  ut  peregrina 
est  et  saeris  literis  ignota  sic 
parit  sensum  minime  pium,  sed 
admodum  superstitiosum :  qui 
vero  indigne  percipiunt  damna- 
tionem  (ut  inquit  Paulus)  sibi 
ipsis  acquirunt. 


Sacramenta  per  verbum  Dei 
instituta  non  tantum  sunt 
notae  professionis  Christianorum 
sed  certa  quaedam,  polius  testi- 
monia et  efficacia  signa  gratice 
atque  bonae  in  nos  voluntatis 
Dei  per  quae  invisibiliter  ipse 
in  nobis  operatur  nostramque 
fidem  in  se  non  solum  excitat 
verum  etiam  confirmat. 


522 


Appendix. 


Article  De  Ccena  Domini. 

Neque    illi   satis   dicunt   qui  Ceena  Domini  non  est  tantum 

arl)itrantur  .  .  .  ccenam  Domini  signum      mutua;      benevolentiae 

signum  tantum  esse  Christian^e  Christianorum  inter  sese,  verum 

benevolentise  etofficiorummutuce  potius  est   sacramentum   nostr?e 

charitatis  .  .  .  caput  et  summam  per  mortem  Christi  redemptionis. 

in  hoc  ponimus  quod   obsignet  Atque   adeo  rite  digne  et    cum 


nobis  Dei  dona  et  promissiones 
quas  ille  offert  fide  apprehen- 
dendas  (113),  ut  ibi  mors  Domini 
commemoraretur  et  communi- 
cantes  fructum  ejus  perciperent 
et  Christo  conjungerentur  (34) 
gratiam  reconciliationem  et  re- 
missionem  peccatorum.  Fallun- 
tur  ergo  illi  qui  putant  transub- 
stantiationem,  etc.  {ut posted). 

ToUenda  est  quselibet  localis 
praesenti^e  imaginatio.  Tametsi 
enim  philosophice  loquendosupra 
coelos  locus  non  est ;  quia  tamen 
corpus  Christi,  ut  fert  bumani 
corporis  natura  et  modus,  finitum 
est  et  coelo  ut  loco  continetur 
necesse  est  a  nobis  tanto  locorum 
interval lo  distare  quanto  coelum 
abest  a  terra. — Foi'in.  Cons.  Tig. 

Non  tamen  sentiendum  est 
corpus  Christi  tam  late  fundi 
quam  late  patet  divinitas  ejus. 
Illud  enim  ut  humanse  naturae 
conditio  requirit  certo  ac  de- 
finito  loco  continetur  qui  est 
coelum  .  .  .  ut  articulus  de 
ascensione  fidem  facit  (350). 
Falluntur  ergo  illi  qui  putant 
vel  transubstantiationem  vel 
praesentiam  Christi  in  Euchar- 
istia  quasi  ex  illius  carne  quam, 
ut  illi  volunt,  realiter  manduc- 


fide  sumentibus,  panis  quern 
frangimus  est  communicatio  cor- 
poris Christi  :  similiter  poculum 
benedictionis  est  communicatio 
sanguinis  Christi.  Panis  et  vini 
transubstantiatio  in  Eucharistia 
ex  sacris  Uteris  probari  non 
potest  sed  apertis  scripturae 
verbis  adversatur  et  multarum 
superstitionum  dedit  occasionem. 
Quum  naturae  humanae  Veritas 
requirat  ut  unius  ejusdemque 
hominis  corpus  in  multis  locis 
simul  esse  non  possit  sed  in  uno 
aliquo  et  definito  loco  esse 
oporteat,  idcirco  Christi  corpus 
in  multis  et  diversis  locis  eodem 
tempore  praesens  esse  non  potest 
et  quoniam  ut  tradunt  sacrae 
literae,  Christus  in  coelum  fuit 
sul)latus,  et  ibi  usque  ad  finem 
seculi  est  permansurus  non  debet 
quisquam  fidelium  carnis  ejus 
et  sanguinis  realem  et  corporalem 
(ut  loquuntur)  praesentiam  in 
Eucharistia  vel  credere  vel  pro- 
fiteri.  Sacramentum  Eucharistiae 
ex  inslitutione  Christi  non  serva- 
butur,  conferebatur,  elevabatur 
nee  adorabatur. 


Appendix, 


523 


Sacramentum  Eucharistiae  ex 
institutione    Cliristi    non   serva- 


batur, 
batur. 


annis  (rcaliler  et  corporaliter 
percipiinus  (306),  aHcrnam  vitam 
hausturi  sumus. — 305. 

Elevatio,  etc.,  non  parvam 
occasionem  idololatriiie  prtebent. 
{Martyr  in  Ep.  ad  Cor. p.  162). 
Qua  in  re  multum  peccatur  hodie 
.  .  .  satisque  habent  homines  si 
contemplati  fuerint  genuflexerint 
atque  adoraverint. 

Article — 

Alinistri   malitia   non    vitiat         Ministrorum 
sai?'awen/a,  e/c.  {p.  n8).  tollit     efficaciam 

divinarum,  etc. 


circumferebatur,    eleva- 
nec  adorabatur. 


malitia     non 
institutionum 


Article — 
Sacrificium  unicum  nostra?  De  unica  Christi  oblatione  in 
salutis  perfectum  est  per  mortem  cruce  perfeda.  Oblatio  Christi 
Christi  Jesu  servatoris  nostri  in  semel  facta  perfecta  est  re- 
ara  crucis  (492),  una  enim  ejus  demptio  pro  omnibus  peccatis 
mors  satis  fuit  ad  omnia  peccata  totius  mundi  turn  originalibus 
expianda.  quam  actual ibus  :  neque  praeter 

illam    unicam  est  ulla   alia  pro 
peccatis    expiatio.     Unde  miss- 
arum    sacrificia,    quibus    vulgo 
Sacrifici  qui  illud  sacrificium     dicebatur,     sacerdotem     offerre 
suis    missis    et    superstitiosis    et     Christum  in  remissionem  paenre 
impiis   susurris    nobis   applicent     aut  culpas  pro  vivis  et  defunctis 
.  .  .  Christum  offerre  pro  aliis     figmenta  sunt  et  perniciosae  im- 
omnino  commentum  est  (296).     posturas. 


NOTE  TO  PAGE  379, 

The  first  part  of  the  following  elegy  on  the  older  members  of 
the  Assembly  is  found  appended  to  more  than  one  funeral  sermon. 
I  give  part  of  it  from  the  funeral  sermon  on  Vines,  contained  in 
E.  870  :— 

"  That  venerable  Synod,  which  of  late 
Was  made  the  object  of  men's  scorn  and  hate, 
(For  want  of  copes  and  mitres,  not  of  graces) 
Are  now  called  up,  like  Moses  ;   and  their  faces, 
When  they  return,  shall  shine.     God  sees  it  fit, 
Such  an  Assembly  should  in  glory  sit. 


524  Appendix. 

The  learned  Twisse  went  first  (it  was  his  right). 

Then  holy  Palmer,  Burroughs,  Love,  Gouge,  White, 

Hill,  Whitaker,  grave  Gataker,  and  Strong, 

Perne,  Marshall,  Robinson,  all  gone  along, 

I  have  not  named  them  half.     Their  only  strife 

Hath  been  (of  late)  who  shall  first  part  with  life  ; 

Those  few,  who  yet  survive,  sick  of  this  age. 

Long  to  have  done  their  parts  and  leave  the  stage. 

Our  English  Luther,  Vines,  whose  death  I  weep. 

Stole  away  (and  said  nothing)  in  a  sleep. 

Sweet  (like  a  swan)  he  preached  that  day  he  went. 

And  for  his  cordial  took  a  sacrament; 

Had  it  but  been  suspected  he  would  die. 

His  people  sure  had  stopped  him  with  their  cry." 

The  elegy  on  Ussher  in  E.  875,  almost  exceeds  the  bounds  of 
legitimate  laudation.     I  can  find  room  only  for  a  few  lines  : — 

"  This  was  the  man  so  just,  so  stout,  so  sage, 
The  shame  and  glory  of  our  sinful  age. 
How  said  I  ?     Man  ?    That  epithet's  too  mean. 
Armagh  was  more  ;  the  miracle  of  men. 
Could  he  be  less,  who  was  both  learned  and  meek  ? 
Could  he  be  less,  who  self  did  never  seek  ? 
Could  he  be  less,  who  knew  no  guile,  no  gall; 
Wise  as  a  serpent,  yet  a  dove  withal  ? 
Could  he  be  less,  who  knew  no  kind  of  pride, 
And  yet  knew  more  than  all  the  land  beside? 
His  intellect  scorned  to  be  confined  by  Dover, 
Bravely  expatiating  the  whole  world  over. 
Beyond  the  common  ne plus  ultra,  he 
(Like  Drake  ambitious  of  discovery). 
Sailed  still  on,  bounded  by  no  degree 
On  this  side  of  universality. 
Storing  his  country  with  more  noble  prize 
Than  that  which  in  the  Western  climate  lies  ; 
America  doth  no  such  mines  contain, 
As  those  comprised  in  the  Indies  of  his  brain." 

NOTE  N,  p.  388. 

The  full  title  of  this  remarkable  book  is,  ''A  Treatise  of  the  Cov- 
enant of  Grace  :  wherein  the  gradual  breakings  out  of  Gospel-grace 
from  Adam  to  Christ  are  clearly  discovered,  the  differences  betwixt 
the  Old  and  New  Testament  are  laid  open,  divers  errors  of  Armin- 
ians  and  others  are  confuted;  the  nature  of  uprightness,  and  the 
7oay  of  Christ  in  bringing  the  soul  into  communion  xvith  Himself: 
together  tuith  many  other  points,  both  doctrinally  and  practically 
profitable,  are  solidly  handled.  By  that  faithful  servant  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  minister  of  the  Gospel  John  Ball  .  .  .  London,  1645." 


Appendix.  525 

The  following  is  the  table  of  the  contents  of  the  several  chap- 
ters: — I.  Of  the  first  part. — I.  Of  the  signification  of  the  word 
Covenant ;  2.  Of  the  Covenant  Qcn}i  made  with  man  in  the  state  of 
innocency;  3.  Ot  the  Covenant  of  Grace  in  general;  4.  Of  the 
Covenant  o{  promise;  5.  Of  the  Covenant  of  promise  made  with 
Aiiam  immediately  upon  his  fall;  6.  Of  the  Covenant  oi  ^x-s.z^  as 
it  was  made  and  manifested  to  Abraham;  7.  Of  the  Covenant  oi 
grace  under  Moses  till  the  return  of  Israel  from  the  Babylonish 
captivity;  8.  A  particular  explication  of  the  Covenant  that  God 
made  with  Israel,  and  what  Moses  brought  to  the  further  expres- 
sure  of  the  Covenant  of  grace ;  9.  Of  the  Covenant  that  God  made 
with  David  ;  10.  Of  the  Covenant  that  God  made  with  Israel  after 
the  Babylonish  captivity;  II.  Of  truth  and  uprightness.  II.  Of 
the  second  part. — Of  the  N'ew  Testament  or  Covenant,  and  how 
God  hath  revealed  Himself  herein  ;  2.  Christ  the  Mediator  of  the 
N'ew  Testament,  for  whom  He  died  and  rose  again;  3.  How 
Christ  hath  fultilled  the  office  of  Mediator,  or  how  He  is  the 
Mediator  of  the  Nezv  Testament ;  4.  How  Christ  doth  bring  His 
people  into  Covenant  or  fellowship  with  Himself;  5.  How  Chris- 
tians answer  to  the  call  of  Christ,  and  so  come  to  have  fellowship 
with  Him. 


NOTE,  p.  401.— Milton's  relation  to  Calvinism. 

I  have  not  ventured  to  do  more  than  put  it  interrogatively. 
Some  of  the  older  editors  of  his  great  poem  regard  the  passage 
quoted  as  evidence  of  the  author's  leaning  to  moderate  Calvinism. 
But  it  is  now  known  that  before  the  end  of  his  days  he  wrote  a 
large  treatise  on  theology  in  which  he  advocated  opinions  at  vari- 
ance with  the  sentiments  of  the  great  mass  of  the  Puritans  on  a 
question  of  far  greater  importance.  This  work  was  not  published 
till  our  own  day,  and  its  learned  editor  has  not  ventured  to  do 
more  than  to  say  that  the  opinions  maintained  in  it  on  the  decrees 
of  God  are  opposed  to  supralapsarianism  on  the  one  hand  and 
to  Socinianism  on  the  other.  But  I  find  it  difficult  to  resist  the 
conclusion  that  Milton,  by  the  time  he  wrote  that  treatise,  had  bid 
adieu  not  only  to  supralapsarianism,  but  even  to  infralapsarianism 
in  its  most  moderate  form.  There  is  good  reason  to  believe,  how- 
ever that  he  had  abandoned  his  earlier  creed  very  slowly  and 
gradually,  and  before  parting  with  Calvinism  altogether,  had  taken 
refuge  for  a  time  in  the  more  lil)eral  school  of  Amyraut,  Dave- 


526  Appendix, 

nant,  and  Howe.  It  may  be  fairly  questioned  if  he  had  finally 
left  this  refuge  when  he  wrote  the  Paradise  Lost.  At  least  in 
the  passage  I  have  quoted,  and  some  others  in  the  poem,  there 
seems  to  me  more  affinity  to  the  opinions  of  that  school  than  of 
any  other.  The  opinion,  that  while  God  has  given  sufficient  grace 
to  all,  he  gives  peculiar  grace  to  some  who  of  His  will  are  elect 
above  the  rest,  seems  akin  to  their  teaching. 

NOTE  O,  p.  436. 

I  intended  to  exhibit  at  length  in  this  note  the  correspondences 
between  the  rules  given  in  the  Larger  Catechism  for  the  explica- 
tion of  the  Divine  Law,  and  those  found  in  the  earlier  treatises  of 
Perkins,  Attersoll,  Ball,  and  IJssher.  I  must  refrain,  however,  from 
inserting  these.  Any  one  who  will  compare  the  rules  as  first  in- 
serted in  the  Minutes  of  the  Assembly  with  the  form  in  which  they 
appear  in  the  earlier  treatises  will  see  at  a  glance  how  closely  the 
Westminster  Divines  followed  in  the  wake  of  their  predecessors. 

NOTE,  p.  378. — Early  Editions  of  the  Confession 
OF  Faith. 
The  first  three  impressions  of  the  Confession,  as  stated  on  the 
above  page,  were  meant  for  the  private  use  of  the  members  of  the 
English  Parliament,^  and  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  and  copies  of 
them  are  still  to  be  found  in  Ihe  British  Museum  (E  366  (?),  E  368, 
E  516).  From  the  third  impression,  but  with  certain  variations 
preserved  in  most  Scottish  editions,  300  copies  were  reprinted  in 
Edinburgh  for  the  use  of  the  members  of  the  Scottish  Assembly 
of  1647  (St.  Andrews  University  Library,  and  in  other  libraries 
in  Scotland).  After  the  Confession  was  adopted  by  that  Assembly, 
one  edition  appears  to  have  been  published  before  the  close  of 
1647  (E  418,  No.  12).  A  copy  of  this  and  of  the  London  edition 
No.  3  is  in  the  Advocates'  Library  at  Edinburgh.  In  the  following 
year  the  Confession,  in  the  form  approved  by  the  English  Houses, 
was  published  at  London  with  the  title  Articles  of  Christian  Re- 
ligion, etc.,  as  on  p.  368.  Principal  Lee  seems  to  have  doubted  if 
it  was  ever  published  in  this  form,  but  copies  exist  both  in  the 
British  Museum  (116  f,  19,  E  449,  T.  ^f^-^)  and  in  the  Bodleian; 
and  another  copy  has  recently  been  offered  for  sale  in  London. 

1  In  E  388,  No.  6,  it  is  expressly  stated  that  "  the  members  subscribed 
their  names  to  the  receipt  "  of  their  copies. 


Appendix.  527 

These  are  all  in  quaj-to.  Another  edition  in  octavo  or  i2mo  was 
published  at  Edinlnngh  in  1648,  with  the  following  title:  '■^TJie 
JItimble  Advice  of  the  Assevibly  of  Divines  lunv  by  aiithorily  of  Par- 
liament sitting  at  Westminster  concerning  (l)  «  Confession  of  Faith, 
(2)  a  Lai-ger  Catechism  (3)  a  Shorter  Catechism.  Presented  by  them 
lately  to  both  Houses  of  Parliament"  (3505  bb,  Brit.  Mus.).  It 
was  probal)ly  from  one  of  the  Scottish  editions,  that  those  published 
by  Bostock  at  London  in  the  same  year  were  taken.  They  are — 
\st,  '■'■The  Humble  Advice  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  etc.  [as  in 
No.  3,  above],  Printed  for  Robert  Bostock  at  the  King's  Head, 
Paul's  Churchyard  1648  "  (i  16  f,  20).  At  the  end  it  has  "  Impri- 
matur Jaines  Cranford,  Dece^nber  7,  1647."  2nd,  "  The  Confession 
of  Paith,  and  Catechisms  agreed  upon  by  the  Assembly  of  Divines 
at  West/ninster  to  be  a  part  of  tiniformity  in  religion,  betiveen  the 
Churches  of  Christ  in  the  Three  Kingdoms.  London,  Printed  for 
R.  B.  etc.  [as  above],  1648."  This  is  accounted  the  fust  English 
edition.  Ihe  copy  in  the  British  Museum  is  from  the  library  of 
the  late  Duke  of  Sussex,  and  bears  the  press  mark  14 12  a,  13. 
Another  copy,  bearing  the  press  mark  E  1419,  has  the  Propositions 
concerning  Church  Government  appended,  and  seems  to  have 
been  the  edition  which  brought  him  into  trouble  with  the  House 
of  Commons  (see  their  Jotirnals  under  date  6th  August  1 649).  I 
suppose  it  was  from  the  first  of  these  editions  of  Bostock  that  a 
German  translation  was  made  in  the  same  year.  Its  title  is : 
'■'Demi'/thiger  Bericht  derversammelten  und  ietz  undaus  macht  und 
Befehl  des  Parlaments  zu  Westmiinster  sitzenden  Lehrern  der 
heiligen  Schrifft  belangende,  ein  Glauhens  Bekenntniss  beyden 
hdusern  des  Parlaments  neulich  iiberreichet,  im  Jahr  nacht  Christi 
Gebilrt  1648,  8z/^."  A  copy  of  this  edition,  we  learn  from  the 
Appendix  to  Niemeyer's  Collectio  Confessionum,  is  preserved  in  the 
Royal  Library  at  Berlin.  It  is  remarkable  as  being  the  first  edition 
in  which  the  Scripture  proofs  are  inserted  at  length,  instead  of 
being  merely  indicated  in  the  margin.  The  preface  contains  a 
very  notable  testimony  to  the  high  regard  in  which  the  divines  of 
Britain  and  their  work  were  held  by  their  brethren  in  Germany, 
who  also  had  been  called  to  suffer  for  their  faithful  attachment  to 
the  doctrines  of  the  Reformation.  They  speak  of  the  Confession 
as,  "ein  Tractatlein  reich  in  alien  Stucken  Gotllicher  Weisheit 
und  Lehre,  fast  von  Wort  zu  Wort  aus  heiliger  Schrift  .  .  abge- 
fasst,  und  ist  ein  kurtzer  Begriff  des  heilsamen  Worte  an  deren 
Fuil)ild  dieselbe  Englandische  Kirche  nach  abgeworffenen  Joche 


528  Appendix. 

Babstischer  Menschen-satzungen  und  Haupt-irrthiimen  bis  daher 
bestandig  gehalten  und  annoch  halten  thut.  .  .  .  Siehe,  so  stehet 
doch  der  Leuchter  dieser  so  lehr  und  glauben-reicher  Kirchen, 
diirch  Gottes  gnade  unbeweglich  und  leuchtet  auf  demselben  in 
diesem  wollgegriindetem  Glaubens-bekenntniss  das  Licht  der 
Wahrheit  .  .  hell  und  klar  herfiir,  glaiibigen  hertzen  zum  Trost 
und  Versicherung."  Possibly  a  Dutch  edition  may  have  been  pub- 
lished about  the  same  time,  and  in  1649  a  rare  and  much  prized 
edition  in  English  issued  from  the  Elzevir  press.  Several  editions 
in  i2mo  or  i8mo  were  published  in  London  and  Edinburgh 
between  1650  and  1655,  (3504  a,  B.  M.  etc.),  as  were  also  two 
Latin  editions  in  small  8vo  at  Cambridge  in  1656  and  1659,  and 
others  of  smaller  size  at  Glasgow  in  1670,^  and  at  Edinburgli  in 
l66o,  1680,  and  1694.  In  1658  there  issued  from  the  London  press 
what  is  termed  the  second  English  edition  of  the  Confession,  a 
large  and  neatly  printed  quarto,  with  the  Scripture  proofs  inserted 
at  length,  and  the  emphatic  parts  of  them  in  a  different  letter.  A 
copy,  with  the  press  mark  E  757,  is  in  the  British  Museum,  but  it 
is  by  no  means  a  rare  edition.  An  edition  in  i2mo  was  published 
at  London  in  1660  (3505  aa,  Brit.  Mus.).  The  third  (so  called) 
English  edition,  is  a  small  octavo,  published  at  London  in  1688. 
The  fifth,  bearing  the  date  of  17 17,  is  a  large  octavo,  and  perhaps 
the  most  handsomely  printed  of  all  these  early  editions  of  the 
Confession.  After  the  Revolution,  editions  in  i2mo,  without  the 
proofs  printed  at  length,  were  published  in  Scotland  in  1688-9  and 
1690,  and  in  the  latter  year  one  in  folio  for  the  use  of  church 
courts,  which,  like  the  copy  engrossed  in  the  records  of  the  Scot- 
tish Parliament  in  the  same  year,  does  not  contain  the  proofs 
either  in  their  abbreviated  or  lengthened  form.  The  editions  of 
later  date  need  not  be  specified,  with  the  exception  of  the  beautiful 
octavo  forming  vol.  i.  of  Dunlop's  Collection  of  Confessions,  etc., 
and  published  at  Edinburgh  in  17 19,  with  a  memorable  preface  in 
defense  of  Confessions  of  Faith, 

The  Independents'  recension  of  the  Confession  was  published 
in  1659,  with  the  title,  A  Declaration  of  the  Faith  and  Order  owned 
and  practiced  in  the  Congregational  Churches  in  England.  It  does 
not  differ  materially  from  the  recension  of  the  Parliament  save  in 
the  insertion  of  a  chapter  (xx.)  on  the  Gospel  and  the  extent  of  the 
grace  thereof.  This  will  appear  to  most  Calvinists  now-a-days  a 
less  happy  statement  than  that  sanctioned  by  the  Westminster 
lit  was  reprinted  in  Glasgow  in  1674. 


Appe7idix,  529 

Assembly  in  their  Larger  Catechism,  in  answer  to  the  question, 
"  How  is  tlie  grace  of  God  manifested  in  the  second  Covenant  ?" 
The  Baptist  recension  was  pubhshed  in  1677,  and  again  in  1688, 
under  the  title,  A  Confession  of  Faith,  put  forth  by  the  Elders  and 
Brethren  of  many  congregations  of  Christians  {baptized  7tpon  pro- 
fession of  their  faith)  in  London  and  the  country,  with  an  Ap- 
pendix concerning  Baptism.  It  follows  mainly  the  Independent 
recension,  but  seems  to  me  to  show  traces  of  the  moderating  influ- 
ence of  Bunyan.  The  first  editions  of  the  Catechism  are  in 
E  411,  416. 


NOTE  (Additional),  p.  379.— Subscription  to  the 
Confession. 

I  have  said  elsewhere  that  the  Westminster  Divines,  from  their 
earnest  desire  to  form  one  comprehensive  Church,  did  not  require 
subscription  to  their  Directories  for  Public  Worship  and  for 
Church  Government,  nor  exact  conformity  to  their  minute  details, 
as  Laud  had  done  to  those  of  the  Prayer- Book  and  Canons,  It 
may  be  doubted  if  the  English  section  of  them  meant  to  require 
more  for  their  Confession  of  Faith  than  that  it  should  be  (like  the 
Irish  Articles)  the  norm  of  public  teaching.  They  felt  with  Bax- 
ter that  "  there  is  a  singular  use  for  a  full  body  of  theology  or  a 
profession  concluded  on  by  such  reverend  assemblies,  that  the 
younger  ministers  may  be  taught  by  it,  and  the  reverence  of  it  may 
restrain  them  from  rash  contradicting  it;  and  there  is  a  necessity 
of  exercising  power  in  ministerial  assemblies  for  the  actual  restraint 
of  such  as  shall  teach  things  intolerably  unsound,  and  all  ministers 
should  be  there  accountable  for  their  doctrine."  Such  a  full  body 
of  theology  in  a  non-liturgical  Church  was  essential  as  a  guide  in 
prayer  as  well  as  in  preaching,  and  its  authority  as  the  norm  of 
both  was  the  least  restriction  that  could  be  imposed  if  reasonable 
soundness  was  to  be  maintained,  and  due  security  given  to  the 
congregations  that  the  liberty  allowed  in  the  devotional  services 
should  not  degenerate  into  license.  Probably  this  was  all  that 
the  majority  of  the  English  divines  were  disposed  to  insist  on.  At 
any  rate  a  sentence  of  Tuckney  often  quoted,  seems  to  point  in 
that  direction.  "  In  the  Assembly  I  gave  my  vote  with  others  that 
the  Confession  of  Faith,  put  out  by  authority,  should  not  be  either 
required  to  be  sworn  or  subscribed  to,  .  .  .  but  only  so  as  not  to  be 
publicly  preached  or  written  against."     I  have   not  come  on  any 


530  Appendix. 

clear  trace  of  this  vote  in  the  Minutes  of  the  Assembly,  but  possibly 
it  occurred  on  or  soon  after  26th  November  1646,  when  the  Con- 
fession was  completed,  and  about  to  be  sent  up  to  the  Houses,  and 
when  it  is  recorded  that  "  Mr.  Nye,  Mr.  Carter,  junior,  and  Mr. 
Greenhill  enter  their  dissent  to  the  sending  up  of  the  Confession 
of  Faith  in  order  to  the  Preface,"  and  is  ordered  that  "before  the 
Confession  of  Faith  be  sent  up  the  Preface  shall  be  debated  and 
prepared  to  be  sent  up  with  it,  if  any  be  made.''''  But  so  far  as 
appears  from  the  Minutes  none  was  debated  or  sent  up. 

The  Church  of  Scotland,  while  agreeing  with  the  English 
Divines  as  to  the  Directory  of  Public  Worship,  and  Form  of 
Church  Government,  has  always  required  her  ministers  to  regard 
the  Confession  of  Faith  as  something  more  than  the  norm  of 
teaching  to  which  in  their  public  ministrations  they  were  to  con- 
form, and  by  the  Act  of  the  Scottish  Parliament  in  1693  she  was 
sufficiently  authorized  to  require  more  than  this,  including  at  least 
personal  acceptance  of  its  main  doctrines,  and  of  the  sum  and 
substance  of  the  Reformed  Faith,  as  set  forth  in  it. 


INDEX 


INDEX. 


The  names  in  Italics  are  those  of  members  of  the  Westminster  Assembly. 
The  use  of  the  Roman  and  Arabic  numerals  immediately  following  the  names  has 
been  explained  in  the  note,  p.  xvi. 


Aarau,  Basel,  etc.,  30. 
Abbot,  Abp.,  80-82,  353,  385. 
Act  of  Supremacy,  288. 

Toleration,  488,  510. 

Uniformity,  38,  472. 

Acts,  Scotch,  of  1567,  288 ;  of  1592,  290-1, 

Adamson,  Abp.,  364. 

Alesius,  Alexander,  14,  23,  29. 

Altare  Damascenum,  364. 

America,  89,  487,  502. 

Amesius,  or  Ames,  354,  380,  388. 

Amyraut,  360. 

Anselm,  336,  337. 

Apocrypha,  71,  94. 

Apoiogetical  Narration,  199,  204 

Replies  to,  200. 

Aquinas,  Thomas,  356. 

Afgyli,  Marquis  of,  xxiv,  129. 

Arminians,  350,  352,  362. 

Arrowstnith,  Dr.  John,  xx,  38:   126,  322, 

355.  395,  428,  442. 
Articles  of  Religion,  xlii.  of  Edward  VI., 

25.  340-345- 
XXXIX.  of  Elizabeth, 

5,  M7,  150. 


236. 


XXXIX.  of  Elizabeth, 

debate  on  Art.  vii.  and  xi.,  150-153. 
of    Westminster   As- 


sembly, see  Confession  of  Faith. 
Articles,  Lambeth,  348,  349,  350. 

Irish,  82,  121,  382-386. 

Ashe,  Simeon,  xxi,  qi. 

Assembly,  General,   of  Scotland,  96, 

225-228,   229,    239,    270,    288,    362, 

458,  463- 
Westminster,  108,  109,  iii 

I18-131,  135,  366,  376,  454,  484. 


109, 
377. 


Assembly,  Westminster,  Baillie's  account 

of,  .75-' 78. 
,    Debates  in,    186, 

192,   197,   201,    233,    260,    296,    330,   etc. 

See  also  Catechisms,  Confession  of  Faith, 

Directory  for    Public  Worship,  do.   for 

Church  Government. 
Augsburg  Confession,  345. 
Augustine,  Augustinianism,  336,  337,  343, 

352,  355,  390,  399.  406. 
Autonomy  of  Church,  278-334. 

Bacon,  Lord,  60,  71,  398, 402. 

Spedding's  Life  of,  61,  500. 

Baillie,  Robert,  xxiv,  129,  192,  194,  216, 

221,  234,  292,  296.  310,  311,  361,  390,  440. 
Bali,  John,    387,  388,  396,  413,  420,  431- 

437.  448. 
Baljuerino,  Lord,  xxiv. 
Bancroft,  Abp.,  79,  351,  499. 
Baptism,  226,  371. 
Baptists,  390,  486. 
Barlow,  349,  500. 
Bare,  348,  351. 
Barret,  347-351- 

Barrington,  Sir  Thos.,  M.  P.,  xvii. 
Bartholomew's  Day,  58,  473. 
Bathurst,  Theo.,  xviii,  2q. 
Baxter,  121,  390,  470,  474. 
Baylie,  Thos.,  B.D.,  xxi,  ^o. 
Bedford,  Earl  of ,  xvi. 
Beza,  287,  357,  358. 
Bible,  10,  IT,  12, 13,  36,  71,  224,  288,  416. 

Genevan  translation  of,  35,  47. 

King  James's  translation,  71. 

Bishops,  41,  42,  63,  64,  70,  81,  93,  98,  100, 
117,  167,  261,  347,  474. 

533 


534 


Index. 


Blair,  Robert,  xxiv,  243,  333,  454,  459. 

Bohemian  Confession,  283. 

Bolingbroke,  Earl  of,  xvi. 

Bonar,  Dr.  H.,  396,  401. 

Bond,  John,  D.C.L.,  xxiii,  T2q. 

Book  of  Common  Order,   36,  47,  50,  106, 

228,  229,  242,  244. 
Book  of  Common  Prayer,  25,  38,  59,  100, 

105,  156,  225,  231,  234,  242,  308,  472. 
Books  of  Discipline,  116,  229. 
Boston,  395. 

Boulton,  Sam.,  B.D.,  xxiii,  i^q. 
Bourne,  Immanue!,  229,  230. 
Bowles,  Oliver,  B.D.,  xvii,  2;  141. 
Boyd,  Robert,  of  Trochrig,  359. 
Bradwardine,  80,  336. 
Bridge,  William,  xviii,  10. 
Brownists,  55. 

Broivnrigge,  Bp.,  xviii,  iq. 
Bucer,  337. 
Buchanan, 366. 

Bidkley,  Richd.,  B.D.,  xxi,  8q. 
Builinger,  44,  346,  358,  381. 
Bunyan,  John,  395,  401,  402,  411,  486. 
Burges,  Cornelius .  Dr.,  xviii, j^;  loi,  146, 

166,  223,  242,373,  436. 
Burgess,  Dr.  John,  75. 
Burgcssc,  Anthony,  xxi,  8s :  387. 
Burnet,  Bp.,  66. 
Bjirroughes ,  Jer .,  xix,  44:  128. 
Burton,  Mr.,  86. 

Dr. ,  342, 

Byfield,  Adoniram,  xxiii,  420,  430. 
Byjield,  Richard,  xxiii,  /jj. 

Calamy,   Edmund,  B.D.,    xix,  4^:   loi, 

125,  243,  395- 
Calderwood,  76,  227,  244,  364. 
Calvin,  35,  152,  343-5,  357,  381,  S^S- 
Calvinism,  objections  against,  395-404. 
Cambridge,  45,  70,  337,  347,  352,  422,  438. 
Cameron,  John,  360. 
Campbell,  Dr.  George,  403. 
Canons  of  1603-4,  74. 

1637  (Scotch),  95. 

1640,  137,  474. 

Cape  I,  Richard,  xviii,  25. 
Carleton,  Bp.,  335,  347,  349,  350. 
Cat yl,  Joseph,  xix,  ^7;  128,  173. 
Carter  [John],  xviii,  2J. 
Carter,  Thos.,  xxii,  10^. 


53,  54,  67,  283, 


371- 
323-32S, 


Carter,  lV.,xx,jb. 
Cartwright,  Thos.,  B.D 

284,  347.  353,  498. 
Case,  Thos.,  xviii,  14. 
Castell  on  Propagation  of  Gospel,  103. 
Cass  His,  Earl  of,  xxiv. 
Catechism  and  Catechising,  246,  300,  367 

418-453- 
Ca7vdrey,  Daniel,  xxiii,  12J ;  322,  420,  439 
Ceremonies,  71,  238,  296. 
Chadderton,  Dr.,  70. 
Chalmers,  Dr.,  396,  481. 
Chambers,  Humphrey,  B.D.,  xx,  /j. 
Charles  I.,  84,  93,  97,  333,  455,  488. 
Charles  II.,  456,  459,  469,  485. 
Chaucer,  401. 

Cheynell,  Fran.,  D.D.,  xxi 
Christ,    Head    of   Church, 

330-32. 
Church,  188,  371,  443. 

censures,  258. 

government,  186-205,  254-277. 

officers,  190,  255. 

Clarendon, iii,  470. 

Clendon,  Thos.,  xxii,  124. 

Clerk,  Peter,  xviii,  26. 

Cleyton,  Rich.,  xix,  41. 

Clotworthy,  Sir  John,  M.P.,  xvii. 

Cocceius,  381,  388. 

Coleman,  Thos.,  x'ix,j8;  125,  172,  304,  331. 

Colet,  Dean,  406. 

Comenius,  John  Amos,  295. 

Commissioners,  Scottish,  to  Westminster 

Assembly,  129,  174,   179,  191,  225,  265, 

270,  305. 

to   receive   Appeals,   etc.. 


310-313,  330. 

Committee  of  Accommodation,  205-209. 

on   Directory  for  Public  Wor- 
ship, 221,  234. 

on    Directory   for  Ordination, 

259- 

onConfessionof  Faith,  367,  368. 

on   Catechisms,  420,  427,  428, 

436-438. 

Grand,  99,  221. 

Committees  of   Assembly,    Three   larger, 

146-149. 
Commons,  House  of,  55,  73,  99,  108,  i8c, 

223,  226,  261,  314-318,  320,  329,  376. 
Communion,  243,  299,  346,  371,  Note  L. 


Index, 


535 


Communion,  Kneeling  at,  25,  35,  41,  77- 

Sitting  at,  11,  19,  223. 

Directory  for,  241,  242. 

Conant,John,  P..D.,  xx,  jb. 

Conference,    Hampton   Court,  70,   72,  78, 

282,  348  ;  also  Note  C,  499. 
Conference,  Savoy,  471,  472. 
Confession  of  Faith,  Westminster,  335,  367, 


376,  377- 


dissents  from,  373,  374. 
sending  up  to  Houses, 

■  title  of,  378. 

■  sources  of,  382-387,  391. 

•  objections  to,  395-416. 

-  Commentaries  on,  391. 

•  Early  Editions  of,  379. 


524- 

Consensus  of  Zurich,  343,  515. 
Convocation  of  1562,  41. 

of  1603-4,  73- 

of  1640,  97. 

of  1661,  472. 

Irish,  of  1615,  350,  384. 

of  1634,  91,  384. 

Comvay,  Earl  of,  xvi. 

Cooke,  Francis,  xx,  67. 

Cooke,  Sir  Joh  « ,  RI .  P . ,  x  vii . 

Corbet,  Edw.,  xx. 

Corbet,  Eciiv.,  xxiii,  132. 

Court  of  High  Commission,  55,  86. 

of  Star  Chamber,  55,  86. 

Covenant,  Scottish  National,  95,  Note  E, 

502. 

> English  National,  145,  164, 170. 

Solemn   League  and,   164,   173, 

181-185,  307,  318,  326. 
Covenants  of  Works  and  Grace,  354,  387, 

388. 
Coverdale,  Miles,  12,  13,  49. 
Cowper,  401, 

Cranmer,  Abp.,  21,  109,  338,  339,  347. 
Crawford,  Dr.,  396,  397. 
Creed,  152,  162,  427,  439. 
Cromvi'ell,  Oliver,  90,   183,   198,  217,  455, 

459,  463- 
Cromwell,  Richard,  468. 
Cross,  sign  of,  41,  42. 
Crosse,  Robt.,  B.D.,  xx,  bo. 

Davenant,  Bp.,  125,  351,  353. 


Davenport  or  Sancta  Clara,  146. 
Deacon,  an  officer  of  church,  190,  255. 
Debate,  The  grand,  between   Presbytery 

and  Independency,  etc.,  206,  454. 
Decree  of  God,  370,  391-395- 
Delme,  Phiii/>,  xxiii,  ijj. 
Denbigh,  Earl  of,  xvi. 
Dickson,  David,  363,  507, 
Directory  for  Family  Worship,  235. 

for  Public  Worship,  219-253. 

for   Church  Government,  Cart- 


wright's,  53. 


,  West- 


minster Assembly's,  265,  298. 
Discipline,  229,  266,  302-303. 
Doctor,  officer  in  church,  190,  191. 
Doddridge,  401. 
Dorner,   History  of  Protestant  Doctrine, 

387.388,517- 
Dort,  82,  147,  350,  384,  409,  410. 
Douglas,  Robert,  xxiv,  129. 
Downing,  Dr.  Calibtite,  xix,  43. 
Du7ining,  William,  xxii,  I2i. 
Dtiry,John,  xxiii,  797;  296,  506. 

Edward  HI.,  279. 

Edward  VI.,  282,  284,  308,  337. 

Elder,  ruling   officer   in   church,    192-197, 

505. 
Elizabeth,  35,  37-40,  42,  48,  51,  52,  56-59, 

282,  285,  308,  350. 
Ellis,  EduK,  B.D.,  xxi,  qq. 
England,  Church  of,  3,  15,  37,  40,  88.  93, 

113,  185,  244,  284,  294,  352,  416,  470,  484. 
Episcopacy,  100,  117,  167,  296. 
Erastus    and    Erastianism,    154,   186,  201, 

286,  287,  304. 
Erastian  Queries,  202,  320-322. 
Erie,  John,  B.D.,  xxii,  113. 
Erskine,  Sir  Chas.,  xxiv. 
Erskines,  E.  and  R.,  395. 
Essex,  Earl  of,  xvi,  184. 
Evelyn,  Sir  John,  RI.P.,  xvii,  317. 
Excommunication,  187. 
Exiles,  English,  on  Continent,  30-37. 

Falkland,  Viscount,  184. 

Farrar,  Bp.,  20. 

Fasts  and  Fasting,  187,321. 

Featlcy,  Dr.  Daniel,  xx,  bb :   loi,  121. 

,  Speeches,  151-159. 


536 


Index, 


Fiennes,  Nathaniel ,  xvii,  318. 

Forbes,  Dr.  John,  361. 

Ford,  Thos.,  xxiii,  IJ4. 

Form  of  Church  Government  in  Church  of 

England  and  Ireland,  267-269. 
Foxe,  John,  30,  49. 
Foxcroft,  John,  xix,  J^  ;  420. 
Frankfort,  33-35. 
Fuller,  103. 

Galloway,  Patrick,  413. 

Gammon,  Haymibal,  xvii. 

Gataker,  Thos.,  B.D.,   xxi,  gj ;  125,  126, 

154,  156,  160,  420. 
Geneva,  35,  36. 
Gibbon,  John,  xxii,  114. 
Gibbs,  George,  xix,  42. 
Gibson,  Samuel,  xx,  6j. 
Gillespie,  George,  xxiv,  129,  187,  211,  227, 

231,  234,  265,  266,  297,  305,  374,  441,  442. 
Glasgow,  Assembly  of,  96,  362. 
Glyn,John,  M. P.,  xvii. 
Good,  William,  xviii,  12S. 
Goodman,  Christ.,  36. 

Good7vin,  Thos.,  B.D.,  xviii,  12 :  128,  221. 
Gouge,  William,  D.D.,  xviii,  18  :  127,  420, 

43i»  435,  448, 
Go7ver,  Stanley,  xviii,  j^. 
Green,  John,  xviii,  jj. 
Greenhill,  W.,  xxi,  87. 
Grindal,  Abp.,  42,  51. 
Guthrie,  James,  197,  506. 

Hacket,  Dr.  John,  xx\,  g8;  loi. 

Hale,  Sir  Matthew,  469. 

Hales,  John,  6,  238. 

Hall,  Bp.,  118,  121,  124,  351. 

Hall,  Henry,  B.D.,  xxi,  77. 

Hallam,  5,  42,  72,  88,  122,  281,  283,  381. 

Hamilton,  Patrick,  357. 

,  Sir  William,  404. 

Hammond,  Dr.  H.,  xxii,  no:  244-248. 

Hampton  Court,  see  Conference. 

Harley,  Sir  Robt.,  xvii. 

Harris,  Dr.  John,  xix,  4q. 

Harris,  Robt.,  B.D.,  xx,  J9;  396,  497. 

Hazelrig,  Sir  A.,  M.P.,  xvii. 

Heidelberg,  286. 

•  Catechism,  453. 

Henderson,   Alex.,   xxiv,    106,    129,    163, 
192,  193,  224,  234,  252,  266,  275,  379,  441. 


Henrietta  Maria,  84. 
Henry  VHI.,  282,  284. 

Prince  of  Wales,  80. 

Heppe,  7,  81,  353. 

Herle,  Charles,  x\x,jq;  222,  297. 

Herrick,  Rich.,  xix,  40. 

Herring,  J.,  252. 

Hetherington,  Dr.,  305,  437. 

Hickes,  Gaspard,  xvii,  8. 

Hildersham,  Sam.,  B.D.,  xx,  70. 

Hill,  Dr.  Thos.,  XIX.  J2 ;  102. 

Hodge,  Dr.  A.  A.,  405,  409. 

Hodges,  Thos. ,  xxn,  107 :  420. 

Holdsworth,  Dr.  Richd.,  xxii,  120;  loi. 

Holland,  Dr.,  353. 

Hollattd,  Earl  of,  xvi. 

Hooker,  54,  64,  350. 

Hooper,  Bp.,  15-20,  410. 

Hozvard,  Lord,  xvi. 

Howie  or  Hoveus,  359. 

Hoyle,  Dr.  Joshua,  xvii,  q ;  126,  353,  355, 

367- 
Humphrey,  Dr.  L.,  49,  353. 
Hut  ton,  Henry,  xxi,  78. 

Independents,  204-206,  224,  390, 

Jackson ,  John,  x']x,SS- 

James  I.  of  England  and  VI.  of  Scotland 

65-B3,  159.  290.  351,  364- 
Jerusalem  Chamber,    175,   and  note,  404 

504- 
Jewel,  Bp.,  John,  347. 
Johnston,  Sir  A., or  Lord  Warriston,  xxiv, 

129,  163,  316,  322-328. 
Johnston,  Robt.,  xxiii,  /j8. 
Jurisdiction,  ecclesiastical,  283. 
Jus  diviman,  321-324,  372, 

Keys,  power  of,  285. 
Knewstub,  Mr.,  70. 
Knox,  John,  23-25,  45,  50,  288,  357. 

Lancashire,  217,  269. 

Lance,  Wm.,  xxii,  lob;  166. 

L.angley,John,  M.A.,  xx,  71. 

Lasco,  John  i,  26-28. 

Latimer,  Bp.,  14. 

Laud,  Abp.,  85,  93,  104,  142,  233,  247,  249, 

252,  352,  362. 
Leighton,  Dr.  Alex.^  86, 


Index, 


537 


Leighton,  Abp.  Robert,  362,  395,  403,  452, 

486. 
Leslie,  Alex.,  or  Earl  of  Leven,  460. 
Leslie,  David,  460. 
Ley,  John,  xviii,  /J. 
Liberty  of  Conscience,  see  Toleration. 
Lightfoot,  Dr.  John,  xx,  68 ;   125, 186, 222, 

232,  332- 
Liturgy,  see  Book  of  Common  Prayer. 

Laud's,  93. 

London, 299, 311,  330. 

Lords,  House  of,  loi,  179,  222,  259,  262. 

Lord's  Day,  19,  82,  371. 

Lord's  Supper,  11,  19,  371,  391. 

Louden,  Earl  of,  xxiv. 

Love,  Dr.  Rich.,  xviii,  77. 

Luther,  286,  343-345,  357- 

Lyford,  Wm.,  B.D.,  xxii,  104;  420. 

M'Cheyne,  R.,  396. 

M'Crie,  Dr.  Thos.,  Junior,   166,  170,  215, 

381,  437,  489. 
Magistrate,  Civil,  286,  298,  372,  374. 
Aliiitland ,  Lord,  xxiv,  129. 
Manchester,  Earl  of,  xvi,  312. 
Manton,  Dr.  Thos.,  xxiv,  note  ;  127,  487. 
March,  John  de  la,  xxii,  102. 
Marprelate  Tracts,  55. 
Marsden,  L.,  58,  247,  381,  473. 
Marshall,  Stephen,  B.D.,  xviii,  2j;  loi, 

127,  221,  240,  312,  420,  425. 
Marston  Moor,  333. 
Martyr,  Peter,  337,  338-343. 
Mary,  Queen  of  England,  29. 
Massani,  Sir  W.,  xvii. 
Massacre,  Irish,  104,  251,  503. 
Masson,  Professor,  119,  251,  295. 
Maynard,John,  M. P.,  xvii. 
Maynard,  Mr.  John,  xxii,  123. 
Melanchthon,  342. 
Meldrum,  Dr.  Robert,  xxiv. 
Melville,  Andrew,  77,  291,  358,  366. 
Mc7v,  William,  B.D.,  xviii,  27. 
JMickclthiuaite,  Thos.,  xxii,  116. 
Millenary  Petition,  69,  499. 
Mihon,  John,  122,  293,  401,  524. 
Milton's  Sonnet,  293,  295. 
iModel,  New,  292. 
Monk,  General,  468-470,  478. 
Montague,  Bp.,  349. 
Montrose,  Earl  of,  333, 


Moore,  Dr.  W.,  230. 
Moreton,  William,  xxi,  8S. 
Morley,  Dr.  Geo.,  xix,  jo. 

Naseby,  333. 

Neal,  168-170,  221,  437. 

Newark,  333. 

Newbury,  184. 

Newcastle,  333. 

Newcoinen,   Mattheiv,   B.D.,    xxii,   103; 

143,  304.  313,  420,  430,  431,  434. 
Nicholson,  Wm.,xxi,g2. 
Northumberland,  Earl  of ,  xvi. 
Nowell,  347. 
Nye,  Henry,  xxi,  82. 
Nye,  Philip,  xviii,  jo;  168,  236,  428. 

Obedience,  Passive,  88. 

Officers,  extraordinary    and   ordinary,  of 

divine  institution  in  the  Church,  190. 
o/xooutrio?,  427. 
Ordinance  for  calling    the  Assembly,  xiii, 

"5,  132. 

for  Choice  of  Elders,  309. 

for  suspension  of  ignorant  and 

scandalous,  298,  309,  330. 

Ordinances  for  Presbyterian  Government, 

330. 
Ordination,  Book  of,  92. 

Directory  for,  259-264. 

Overall,  Bp.,  347,  349,  353,  380. 

Owen,  Dr.  John,  209,  398. 

Oxford.  45,  70,  133,  137,  333,  337,  352,  355. 

Painter,  Henry,  D.D.,xxii,  //j'. 
Palatine,  Prince  Elector,  xxiv,  83. 
Palmer,  Herbert,  B.D.,  xvii,  /;  128,  149, 

187,  193,  221,  420-427,  438. 
Parker,  Abp.,  48. 
Parliament,   5,  28,  55,  73,  84,  98,  117,  118, 

135,  162,  182,  265,  267,  306. 
Pashley,  Dr.  Christ.,  xxi,  95;  287. 
Pastor,  an  officer  of  divine  institution,  190. 
Peale,  Edward,  xviii,  22. 
Pembroke,  Earl  of,  xvi. 
Perkins,  380,  420. 
Pernc,  Andreas,  xxii,  108. 
Petitions  of  Assembly  to  Parliament,  299, 

306,  314. 
Philips,  John,  xx,  7.^. 
Pickering,  Benj.,  xxi,  81. 


538 


Index. 


Picrpoint,  IVm.,  M.  P.,  xvii. 

Pilgrim  Fathers,  89,  121,  and  Note  D,  501. 

Place,  Stunuel  de  la,  xxii,  loi ;  271. 

Pluralities,  72,  499. 

Prayer,  Free,  232,  237. 

Pope  and  Popery,  105,  416. 

Poynet,  Bp.,  20,  36. 

Preaching,  Directory  for,  246-248. 

Praemunire,  135,  279,  316,  320. 

Predestination,  130,  337,  340,  343,  391. 

Prelacy,  167,  note. 

Presbytery,  120,  198,  275,  282. 

Price,  Dr.  Win.,  xxii,  118;  166. 

Prideaux,  Edtn.,  M.  P.,  xvii. 

Pridcaux,  Bp.,  101,  353,  380. 

Privas,  Synod  of,  155,  159. 

Proclamation  prohibiting  meeting  of  As- 
sembly, 133. 

Prophet,  Nicholas,  xxii,  ///. 

Proofs,  Scripture,  for  Confession,  377. 

Prophesyings,  50,  77,  80,  246. 

Propositions  concerning  Church  Govern- 
ment, 18S,  255,  257,  264. 

CXI.,  of  Gillespie,  507. 

Protestation  or  Vow  of  Members  of  As- 
sembly, 145. 

Prin  or  Prynnc,  86. 

Psalms,  metrical,  47,  192,  224. 

Purge,  Pride's,  217. 

Puritans,  Origin  of  name,  etc.,  3,  7,  493. 

Pye,  Sir  Robert,  xvii. 

Pynt,John,  M.  P.,  xvii. 

Pyne,  John,  xviii,  13, 

Queries  of  Commons  as  to  Jus  divintiin, 
315,  320. 

Rathbone,  Wm.,  xxiii,  12b. 

Rationalism,  399. 

Ray  nor,  Wt>t.,  xvii,  b. 

Reasons  of  Dissent  by  "  Dissenting  Bre- 
thren," and  Answers  by  Assernbiy,  206. 

Regents  or  Professors  from  Scotland,  366. 

Revolution  of  1688,  488. 

Reynolds,  Dr.,  70,  349,  380. 

Reynolds,  Dr.  Edward,  xix,  j/;  124,  214, 
428. 

Reynolds,  Robt.,  M.  P.,  xvii. 

Ridley,  Bp.,  20,  347. 

Rohorough,  Henry,  xxiii. 

Rogers,  Ezekiel,  420,  448. 


Rogers,  'J'homas,  350. 

Rollock,  358. 

Root  and  Branch  Petition,  100. 

Rouse,  Francis,  M.  P.,  xvii,  192. 

Rubric,  Black,  25. 

Rudyard,  Sir  Uenj.,  M.  P.,  xvii,  319. 

Rules  presented  to  Assembly,  138. 

Rutherfurd,  Samuel,  xxiv,  129,  191,  294, 

395,  421,  425,  439»  454- 
Rutland,  Earl  of,  xvi. 

Sabbath,  see  Lord's  Day. 

Salisbury,  Earl  of,  xvi. 

Sallaivay,  Arthur,  xxi,  83. 

Salloway,  Humphrey,  M.  P.,  xvii. 

Sampson,  Dr.,  49. 

Sanderson,  Dr.  Robert,  x'lx,  ^j ;  loi. 

Sandys,  Abp.,  40,  48. 

Savoy,  see  Conference. 

or    Independent    Confession,    390, 

528. 
Say  and  Scale,  Viscount,  xvi,  2^2. 
Schafif,  Dr.,  131,  386. 
Scharpius  or  Schairp,  Dr  John,  361. 
Scotland,   Church   of,    115,    197,  223,  237, 

245,   262,   275,    356,   403,  424,  478.     See 

also.  Assembly,  General. 
Parliament  of,  225,  265,  288,  379, 


451,  478. 


Reformation  in,  42,  92,  106,  210, 

288,  290,  311. 
Scudder,  Henry,  xxi,  yq. 
Seaman,  Dr.  Lazarus,  xix,  48 :  125,  313. 
Sects  and  Sectaries,  216,  458. 
Sedgewick,  Obadiah,  xviii,  24;  395,  420. 
Selden,  John,  M.   P.,  xvii,  147,  189,  296, 

315. 
Servetus,  412. 

Simpson,  Sydrach,  xxi,  84. 
Smectymnuus,  233. 
Smeton,  359. 

Smith,  Dr.  B.  or  P.,  xviii,  j/. 
Socinianism,  399. 
Somersetshire,  269. 
Sparkes,  Dr.,  70. 
Spurstowe,  Dr.  William,  xxi,  qj. 
Stanley,  Dean,  175,  178,  386,  415. 
Stanton,  Dr.  Edmd.,  xx,  6j;  251,  371. 
St.  John  Oliver,  M.P.  xvii. 
Sterry,  Peter,  B.D.,  xxii,  T12. 
Stoughton,  Dr.,  98,  122,  168,  184,  203. 


Index. 


539 


Strafford,  Earl  of,  91,  95,  104,  386. 
Strang,  Dr.,  360. 
Strasburg,  357. 
Strickland,  John,  xxiii,  127. 
Strong,  Win.,  xxiii,  /J7. 
Stroud,  Williaiii,  M.P.,  xvii. 
Styles,  Dr.  Matthias,  xx,  62. 
Subscription,  48,  74,  Note,  529. 
Supremacy,  281-283. 
Surplice,  33,  35,  42,  92. 
Symsons,  363,  364. 
Synods,  London,  268. 

Tate,  Zoiich,  M   P.,  xvii. 

Taylor,  Francis,  B.  D.,  xviii,  jj. 

Temple,  Dr.  Thos.,  xxi,  qo :  367,  438. 

Thoroughgood,  Thos.,  xx,  j/. 

Tisdale,  Christopher,  xx,  72. 

Toleration,  Question  of,  15,  208-218,  Note, 

509- 
Toplady,  351,  401,  487. 
Tozer,  Henry,  B.D.,  xxi,  qb. 
Tuckney,  Dr.  Anthony,  xix,  J7;   126,  355, 

395,  428,  436,  438- 
Twisse,Dr.  lVilliain,x\'n,s :  101, 115,  123, 

135,  144,  154,  159,  297,  306,  354,  379,  420. 

Union,  Protestant,  106,  107. 

Ussher,  Abp.,  James,  xx,  br :  loi,  121, 131, 

296.  351,  353.  383.  384,  420,  430,  434,  435, 

486. 

Valentine,  Thos.,  B.D.,  xvii,  4. 
Vane,  Sir  Harry,  Sen.,  M.P.,  xvii. 
Vane,  Sir  Harry,  Jun.,  M.P.,  xvii. 
Veitch,  Prof.,  366. 
Vines,  Richard,  xxi,  Sb ;   154,  313,  428. 

IValker,  George,  B  D.,  xix,  4b. 


350,  353- 


Q4- 


log. 


lb. 


Wallis,  Dr.  John,  xxiii,  125,  126,  422,427, 

439.  441- 
Wandsworth,  Presbytery  of,  53. 
Hard,  Dr.  Sam.,  xviii,  20;  101, 
Ward,  John,  xxiii,  /j/. 
Warwick,  Earl  of,  xvi. 
Wcldy,  or  Welhy,Jas.,  xxi 
Wentworth,  see  Strafford. 
Wcstfuld,  Bp.,  Thos.,  xxii, 
Wharton,  Lord,  xvi. 
Wheeler,  William,  M.P..  xvii. 
Whidden,  P'rancis,  RI.A.,  xviii, 
Whitaker,  Dr.,  103,  347,  353. 
Whitaker ,  Jeremiah,  xx,b4;  181. 
White,  John,  xviii,  21 :  loi,  146,  306,  409. 
White,  John,  M.P.,  xvii. 
Whitlocke,  Bouldstrode,  M.P.,  xvii. 
Whitfield,  George,  395,  401. 
Whitgift,  Abp.,  55,  56,  70,  78-80,  347,  350. 
Wild,  Mr.  Sergeant,  M  P.,  xvii. 
Wilkinson,  Henry,  Sen.,  B.D.,  xvii,  j. 
Wilkinson,  Henry,  Jun.,  B.D.,xxii,  iiq. 
Williams,  Abp.,  87,  ico. 
Willison,  237,  395. 
Wilson,  Thos.,  xviii,  j6;  420,438. 
Wincop,  Dr.  John,  xxii,  1 17. 
Wincop,  Dr.   Thos.,  xviii,  //. 
Winrham,  George,  xxiv. 
Wishart,  George,  357. 
Witsius,  388. 

Woodcock,  Francis,  xxii,  122 :  251. 
Worcestershire,  269. 
Wiirtemberg  Confession,  516. 
Wyclif,  2,  336,  337. 

Young,  Dr.   Thomas,  xx,  yj ;  221,  297. 
Young,  Walter,  RI.P.,  xvii. 

Zurich,  30,  50. 


